


Long Shadows

by Leia_Naberrie



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, TVD AU from 6x17, TVD season_5 AU I guess because that season didn't make any sense, The Originals AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2019-11-08 21:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 88,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17988617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia_Naberrie/pseuds/Leia_Naberrie
Summary: It's one year after Jo's and Alaric's wedding. After a period of relative peace, Mystic Falls suddenly acquires a heretic problem. Bonnie, semi-retired town protector, travels to Portland to petition for help from the Gemini coven and its leader, Kai Parker. Season 7 AU. (Bonkai)





	1. the one battle that she can't walk away from

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate-season 7 and beyond for TVD. It veers sharply from canon after 6x17 specifically the episode where Bonnie traps Kai in the 1903 Prison World, and you'll see how during the course of the story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days leading up to this trip had seen her emotions run the gamut from dread to anticipation. It changed with every passing day, every passing hour. The only constant thought in her head was – "Get it over with."

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

The night of Jo’s wedding, Bonnie woke up to smoke and fire and screams.

And black magic.

It was thick in the air, thick enough to choke on. And it fed greedily on the fear and panic that surrounded her.

For a few seconds, she just lay on the floor, tired, so tired. Through the ground, she could still hear the screaming, the sounds of running feet, of distant explosions. 

This was happening. This was really happening. 

She had raced against time to get here and warn them. Yet despite all their plans, despite all their precautions, despite all her prayers and sacrifices …  she was too late. 

She was tired. Maybe she should just stay down, wait for it to be over.

Wait for them to come and kill her. 

Then a familiar face flew into her vision and all thoughts of rolling over and dying fled from her.

“Kai!” she screamed, panicked, and her hand flew out instinctively. 

He caught the  _motus_  with reflexes that would have impressed her from anyone else and sent it harmlessly into the air. Before she could incant again, his hands were wrapped around her shoulders, dragging her to her feet and immobilizing her magic. She knew that it only took the slightest pressure and her magic would be ripped out of her painfully.

You only got one chance against Kai Parker and she had used up hers.

“What did you do?” she shouted into his face.

A trickle of blood ran from his temple to his chin, and his formerly impeccable suit was stained with more blood and soot. His grey eyes narrowed at her, looking as furious as she felt. 

“What did  _I_  do? Do you think I did this?”

Before she could respond, there was a whistling sound beside them. He whispered something and they slid three meters across the floor. A second later, the grand piano landed on the space they had been standing in.

Bonnie jumped and his grip on her tightened, painfully. 

“Let me go … ”

“KAI!”

Both turned to see Joshua Parker rushing towards them, his suit and beard covered with soot, magic pouring out of his hands. 

“We need you! They’re trying to breach the Southern Portal! If one of the anti-cloaking barriers come down…”

Bonnie gaped at him, then gaped even harder at Kai when he said, “OK” and while she was still trying to understand what the Hell was going on, Kai was shoving her at his father. 

“Get her out.” He said to the older man. 

“I don’t have time to-”

Kai grabbed his father’s sleeve. “I need her to not be here.”

Joshua frowned, about to speak, then must have seen something in Kai’s face that silenced him. “I will.”

Kai gave her one last look, his eyes full of things she couldn’t begin to decipher, then he was gone.

Joshua Parker’s hand was wrapped around her elbow and she was being dragged along beside him as he cut a path through the chaos of twisted furniture – and broken bones. Both littered the once-beautiful wedding hall.She could make out figures in the crowd: witches and warlocks in their once-glamorous wedding clothes, hands outstretched and chanting, their magic curling through the air like white smoke. A flash of blonde curls caught her gaze and she stared, barely recognising Liv Tyler in a black dress, twirling like a ballerina as sparks of power poured out from her eyes and finger-tips. Around her a werewolf prowled, its teeth bared and stained with blood.

Then in the far distance, towards the south, red hooded silhouettes with black auras pouring from their beings. 

“There’s a portal on the Eastern side. We’re sending the younger children and the mundanes through. Come on,” he shouted at Bonnie who had dug her heels half-way across the floor.

“Not until someone tells me what is going on!” she shouted back, standing her ground.

“I don’t have time-” 

“Tell me!”

There was a small explosion to their right. Joshua raised his hand in time to deflect the debris from them. 

The older warlock glared at her. “The heretics attacked.”

_Too late_ _…_ _Too late_ _…_ The phrase echoed in Bonnie’s head. 

“Elena?”  _Caroline_ _…_ _Damon_ _…_ _Stefan_ _…_ _?_

“The doppelganger? She and the vampires left us to deal with this on our own.”

And left her behind, Bonnie thought then mentally shook it away. They hadn’t even realized she was here. She had got here seconds after all hell broke loose. 

“What about Jo? Is she-”

“Safe. Kai was right beside her. Made a path for her and Alaric to get away.”

Instinctively, her head turned, searching for him in the melee. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his magic, bursts of him sending shockwaves through the hall, under her skin. 

Had she been wrong? 

Joshua was still speaking. “The coven is taking heavy losses and I need to get you out of here.  _Come on_ , girl. I have to get back to the fight!”

Bonnie, turned back to him and shook her head. “I can fight.”

“I know you have magic, but leave this for the witches trained in combat.”

Bonnie would have laughed if she wasn’t in a life and death situation. “I have seen combat. And I am a Bennett.” 

Joshua Parker turned at her, his face registering shock. “What?”

Above them, there was a creaking sound. They moved just in time to dodge the chandelier that fell with a shatter of glass and wires on the floor. Joshua raised his hand but Bonnie was faster. 

The shards of glass stayed up, suspended in mid-air. Then they swirled into a cluster in the shape of an arrow and went spinning towards the south side of the hall.

A high-pitched shriek filled the air. Bonnie waved her hand and then it stopped. 

She looked at Joshua Parker’s frozen face.“I’m Bonnie Bennett,” she repeated. “I’m Sheila’s grand-daughter. I can help you.”

“My son asked me to get you to safety,” Joshua said uncertainly.

Bonnie finally twisted out of his grip. “I’m not a Gemini. I don’t take orders from you or your son.”

The old man’s lips twitched. He nodded. “Try to get to the stage. That’s the best vantage.” His lips twitched again. “Stay away from the south side. The coven leader is probably there.”

Then he left her, his arm already rising up to shoot a spell from his index finger. 

Bonnie stared up at stage. She could make out two young witches, standing back to back, working magic and shooting it up at the sky. A red-robed figure was bearing down on them, mouth snarling with curses. 

She started running.

* * *

June 2014, Portland

**June 2014**

_Portland_

* * *

The landing rocked her awake. She jolted forward, and almost slipped off her seat during the forward throw. She scrambled back into place.

Damon watched throughout; the only thing on his face that was not actually laughing was his mouth. Bonnie shot him a dirty look.“Thanks a lot, jerk.”

“You’re welcome,” he crowed. 

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We have reached Portland Airport. Please stay in your seats until the plane has come to a complete stop, the engines switched off and the Seatbelt Sign has turned off.”

“Had a nice nap?” Damon asked, his eyes still dancing with laughter.

Bonnie scowled. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Alaric was waiting for them at the airport. He and Damon exchanged bro-hugs and, to Bonnie’s surprise, Alaric bypassed her outstretched hand and lifted her from the ground in a huge bear-hug.

“Hey!” she said, laughing. Alaric Saltzman had gone from being her favourite professor in high school to someone whose death she mourned to someone who she barely spoke to. Even though it had been over a year since they last saw each other, she hadn’t expected this kind of welcome.

“It’s so great to see you, guys,” Alaric said, his face wreathed with smiles as they walked to his car. “Jo will be over the moon.”

“You’re just saying that because you need someone to take over diaper duty,” Damon drawled, his tone not quite disguising the broad smile on his face. 

“That, too!” Alaric said with a laugh.

He looked great, Bonnie noted, half-enviously. A year out of Mystic Falls, with his brand-new family, a comfortable job at the local high school, and in the heart of one of the most powerful covens in the world – 

_Who considered his children their heirs_

– had done wonders for the gloomy, half-broken man he used to be. 

Of course, none of that would have even been possible if he hadn’t come back to life in the first place.

Bonnie pushed back the thought. She had long moved past that bitterness.

The car drove through the warm streets of Portland. Bonnie, riding in the back, kept turning her head to take in the sights and sounds. The last time she was here was both at once a year and nineteen years ago. Then the streets were empty and she had been driving fast enough to kill herself. She hadn’t had time to stop and smell the roses.

Literally. The city was littered with them. 

Back in Mystic Falls, the streets were littered with vervain. 

“This is not a social call, drinking bud,” Damon said bluntly somewhere after an hour of catching up as they turned into a street. 

Alaric shrugged. “Whatever. I’m just glad to have you guys here.”

She and Damon shared a loaded glance through his side mirror.

They hoped Alaric would still think so when he heard what they had to say.

“Talking about drinking,” Alaric said now. “Remember what I told you?”

Damon heaved a long-suffering sigh. “No blood. No fangs. No fun. Relax, Ric. I’ll be on my best behaviour.”

“You’re not exactly going to have a choice,” Alaric said sheepishly. “Coven put in a few spells in the house.”

“Let me guess: a few  _vampire_ -proofing spells?”

Alaric shrugged again. “The girls are their heirs. I’m just the baby-daddy.”

“The word you’re looking for is sperm donor.” Damon said snidely and looked like he was ready to say more about this but at that moment, Alaric took the car off the road and into a gated estate straight from a suburbia catalogue.

He drove past the fence, up his driveway and parked the car. 

Then he waited the few seconds it took Damon to stop laughing.

More like few minutes.

Five minutes later, Damon was still laughing as they pulled their luggage behind them: Damon carrying his knapsack, Bonnie swinging her satchel and Alaric struggling with the three pieces of luggage that she had managed to squeeze a week’s worth of essentials into. 

“A white picket fence? Really? A white picket fence?” Damon asked when he finally caught his breath. Then he burst into laughter again. 

“Oh shut up,” Alaric said finally, the walk between the car and his door apparently too much for him and his burden and he stopped halfway. “Come here and give me some help.”

“Why should I help? That’s  _Bonnie’s_ stuff not mine.” 

“Because you can try to be a gentleman?” she asked, smoothly.

“What happened to equal rights?” he retorted.

“What the heck is equal about vampire strength?” 

Their bickering was – thankfully – cut short by the front door opening and the spectacle of Liv Parker standing before them, a crying baby on her hip.  

“Oh thank god!” she said by way of greeting and dropped the baby in Bonnie’s arms. 

“W-what?” Bonnie said in horror, just barely holding onto cloth and blanket and staring into a face that had apparently, been shocked into silence at the sight of her.

Liv was already walking across the lawn. “I need to get out of this house. You said an hour, Alaric!” she said, as she passed him.

“There was traffic. Where’s Jo?” he yelled, after her back.

“Sleeping with Rachel. Don’t you wake them!” Liv yelled back, not turning her head.

The baby, having studied Bonnie’s face and come to its own conclusions, opened its mouth into a high-pitched wail.

“Welcome to my home!” Alaric said cheerfully, as he followed Damon with the last of Bonnie’s boxes to the front door.

* * *

Jo didn’t wake up until almost three hours later and when she did, she scooped up the wailing baby with one hand, and it shushed the moment it disappeared into her blouse. Everyone was too relieved to be embarrassed – although Damon started opening his mouth and closed it without comment under Bonnie’s and Alaric’s combined icy glares.

“I love your hair,” Jo raved, eyeing Bonnie’s almost waist length braid with approval as she led her upstairs, to the nursery. “You look amazing. Very continental,” she added with a wink, clearly referring to Bonnie’s summer of Europe, the previous year. She had left a few weeks before the Saltzmans themselves had moved out of Virginia for good.

“ _You_ look incredible,” Bonnie countered honestly. She couldn’t stop sneaking glances at the older woman as they bent over the side of the double crib to coo at the sleeping baby, also a girl. Apparently, a year away from Mystic Falls translated to ten years away from one’s age. The doctor looked closer to Bonnie’s age than her own, black hair radiant, her skin glowing and her whole demeanour brighter and happier than Bonnie had ever seen. Not even on Jo’s wedding day. 

Bonnie swallowed, dark emotions lurking somewhere near, never far from her heart, whenever the memory of that day entered in her thoughts.

The two women – and a half, counting the baby in Jo’s arms – left the nursery and made themselves comfortable in Jo’s bedroom while Alaric and Damon made themselves useful cooking lunch.

“Sorry, it’s all hands on deck here,” Jo said with a laugh as she kicked up her feet on the small stool while Bonnie – in a fit of spontaneity she was fast regretting – tried to make sense of the clutter of baby clothes that were thrown on the bed. 

“No matching sets?” she asked, holding up one green short-sleeved onesie and a yellow sleeveless one.

Jo shuddered. “I’ve had enough of matching twin sets to last a lifetime. Kai and I wore colour-coded clothes until we were twelve and Luke and Liv had to do the same. We even still got matching sweaters for the holidays.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to give my girls some individuality or die trying.”

Bonnie was silent, concentrating hard on folding the clothes correctly. 

Jo sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to just throw him at your face. I know you guys –”

Bonnie gave her a sharp look. “You know we what?”

Jo bit her lip and fell silent.

“What?” Bonnie asked, trying and failing to keep the aggression from her voice.

“I know you guys have things to work out,” Jo said finally.

Bonnie felt her heart stutter. “What did he tell you?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “Bonnie, he didn’t have to. Look, I’m not going to have this conversation with you if you don’t want to. But …  you didn’t come here just to coo over my babies. You’re going to see Kai soon and you’d better know what you want from him when you do.”

“We need his help with the situation at Mystic Falls,” Bonnie said at once. “The heretics that returned. That’s all I’m here for.”

Jo shrugged.

That little gesture infuriated Bonnie and she wasn’t able to censor her next words. “Since when did you two get so close anyway? Why are  _you_  so OK with him?” 

Jo stared at her. “He’s my brother, my twin.”

“Who murdered half of your siblings.”

Jo’s face fell and Bonnie felt like kicking herself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t.”

“No, you- you have a right to hear this.” The doctor was silent for a moment, and tapped the baby at her breast. It looked like if she had fallen asleep, and Jo was trying to get her to keep feeding. “After the merge with Luke, Kai changed. That’s what happens after a Gemini twin merge ceremony. One twin physically lives on but within that body, the souls of both twins combine to form an entirely new person. It’s not just a transference of power – it’s a  _mergence._  The Kai that is alive now  …  he’s more like the brother I remember growing up with, the brother that I loved than the monster that destroyed our family. I can’t hate him anymore than I can hate Luke who died saving my life.”

Bonnie was shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve heard this before and I don’t …  I don’t accept it.”

“It’s not up to you to accept or not,” Jo said quietly. “It’s the truth. I’ve made my peace with it, with Kai. So has Liv, my father, the rest of the coven. If Kai was still the same man he was over a year ago, my father won’t be alive today and the same goes for half, if not more of our coven. He saved my life and countless others. He’s saved yours, too.” Bonnie opened her mouth to retort and Jo raised her hand. “Yes, I know. After he put you in danger in the first place, I know. But he still did it, Bonnie. That must have – it must have counted for something, right?”

Bonnie said nothing. 

“He’s  …  he’s a good man. I’d never have imagined a year ago that I would be the one to say this. But it’s the truth.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Bonnie was silent.

“If you came here to harm Kai, I’m not going to let you.”

Bonnie started at the sudden hardness in the other woman’s voice. “I didn’t come here for that,” Bonnie said vehemently. “We need his help. I’ve worked with people I’ve hated before in the past. I can keep my personal feelings out of it.”

Jo stared at her searchingly, and Bonnie stared back. Then the doctor nodded, apparently satisfied. 

“OK, then. Help me get this little one to bed then we’ll go and take a look at all the lovely presents you brought from Whitmore.”

* * *

Liv Parker showed up just as the dinner places were being set. It was a good meal. Bonnie was so hungry that anything would have tasted good at that point in time but she had to admit that Alaric and Damon really outdid themselves. It was also a bit disorganised, between the conversations that kept starting and stopping and going over each other as everyone tried to keep up to date on over a year’s worth of stories. Occasionally, the baby monitor would beep and Alaric – it was always Alaric, never Jo – would jump to his feet and check in the nursery. When he came back after the third false alarm, Jo shook her head and told him to save his energy for the night-time feedings. 

Everything was so peaceful, Bonnie found herself thinking sometime after her second glass of wine. So peaceful and so normal. While back at home, life had come to a petrified halt.

Finally, dinner was over. The twins were still sleeping and Liv took Bonnie upstairs.She didn’t seem any more enthusiastic towards Bonnie and Damon than she was a few hours ago but she did show Bonnie the room they would be sharing and even offered to switch beds with her if Bonnie liked. 

“No, but thanks,” Bonnie replied, a little surprised at Liv’s friendliness – her version of it, of course. “You know, Damon and I could have just booked a hotel.”

“Wow, hooking up already? I thought it’d take him at least a couple of years post-Doppelganger to get into your pants.”

Bonnie gaped. “What? Er …  no. Also,  _ewwww_! I meant separate rooms; Damon and I aren’t in a relationship.” As a matter of fact, last month was the first time Bonnie had seen him in ages but that was hardly Liv’s business. 

“You don’t need to be in a relationship to hook up,” Liv said wryly.

“Trust me, I  _do_.” Bonnie retorted. Then she fell silent and turned to the box she was unpacking, fighting the urge to check her nose to see if it was growing. What happened in Europe, stayed in Europe, she reminded herself. And as for what happened  _before_ …

That didn’t count. Not in the least. 

“Well, I’m certain Damon will still go for you someday. I think if he wasn’t so hung up on the Doppelganger, he’d have gone for you years ago. Didn’t he have the whole Protector of the Bennett line going on for a century? That’s a long time to stand guard over a bloodline and not get some compensation.”

“OK first of all, gross. Secondly, I’ve done plenty for Damon over the years. I think I’ve more than  _compensated_  him. And finally, Protector of the Bennett line? Don’t make me laugh. I hope he’s not going about telling people that because he’s not going to get a reference from me.”

Liv hummed, looking contemplative. “So the doppelganger’s gone for good and Damon’s single? Why do I find that hard to believe? You sure she’s really gone? She didn’t have him swear some kind of fidelity blood-oath until she returned? No, that won’t work; Damon would have died by now …  No, she’s probably already flown back in from Europe and is hiding somewhere in that huge house of theirs so her girlfriends won’t shame her. Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“It sounds to me like you’re weirdly interested in what’s going on in Damon’s pants.”

“Yuck.” Liv shuddered. “OK, so if you’re not hooking up with Damon, then who’s it? Did you and Jeremy get back together?”

“No.” Bonnie gave Liv a look. “Why? You want him? I can give you his number.”

Liv made a face. “No, thanks. I don’t do younger men. That’s more your thing,” she said sweetly.

“Can’t wait to meet the dude you’re currently doing then,” Bonnie retorted with equal sugar as she looked for her sleepwear with a little more agitation than necessary. “Hope I don’t end up making a play for him. Oh wait, that’s more  _your_  thing, isn’t it?” Not exactly the best comeback, and heaven knows she wasn’t in the least bit interested in Liv’s boyfriends, hook-ups or otherwise. But if Bonnie had picked up anything from Damon Salvatore, it was that a good offensive was the best kind of defence. 

Liv didn’t answer right away, so Bonnie looked up, and was surprised. From the frozen look on Liv’s face, Bonnie’s weak barb had drawn blood. 

“Er …  Liv?” 

Liv’s face shifted back into its default stone-cold bitch glare. “You can try. But any guy I date would eat a sweet little thing like you for breakfast.”

“Or maybe the guys you date are just lousy in bed and that’s why you’re always such a bitch?” 

Liv flipped her outrageous curls. “Being a bitch is better than being a doormat. Have you finally grown a spine now that the doppelganger has left-”

“Her name is Elena,” Bonnie said tersely. 

“Or do you roll over and die for Forbes now? I’m guessing there’s no need to ask if you still do that for the Salvatores.  _Ow!_ ”

A tiny – well, maybe not so tiny – zing had zipped out of Bonnie and hit the other woman square on the cheek.

“Oops, my bad,” Bonnie purred. 

“Did you just give me a zit?” Liv yelled, rushing to the mirror.

Bonnie shrugged.

Liv glared at her through the glass, her own fingers curling into a hex pattern. Bonnie braced herself, ready to throw it back at her.

Then Liv’s hand dropped to her side and she smiled ruefully. “I guess I had that coming.”

“You think?”

“So not a doormat, anymore, Bonnie. Looks like your time-out with my brother really brought out your inner bitch.”

Quickly, Bonnie turned back to her box, her hands balled into fists. She managed – barely – to rein herself in. 

“Whatever, Liv. Are we going to get along or do I really need to book that hotel?”

“Relax,  _miyagi_ ,” Liv said, surprising Bonnie by mentioning the nickname she had given her when she – Bonnie – had foolishly thought that she was training Liv. 

What a joke. 

“I wanted to know who I was dealing with,” Liv continued. “Now I know.”

“Know what?”

Liv smiled. “I know we’re going to get along just fine.” She threw herself on her bed. “I’m taking you to the Great Coven Leader, tomorrow by the way. So make sure you bring your A-game.” 

Bonnie was silent, as she gathered her bathroom things. On the tip of her tongue were the same questions she had thrown earlier at Jo – why Liv was also so  _normal_  about the brother she once hated, the brother that had killed the twin she loved so much.

Then Bonnie decided that it was none of her business. None of the Parkers were, really. She was only here because she had to be and once she got the help she needed, she was leaving and hopefully, never looking back. 

She did hesitate at the bathroom door, and when she looked back she caught Liv’s sober face, staring at her.

“Tyler and Matt are doing great at the academy,” Bonnie said, softly. “Matt and I get together once in a while, and sometimes Tyler drops by. I don’t think he’s dating anyone serious, either.”

Liv’s raccoon-shadowed eyes brightened up a little. Then she made a face quickly to hide it. “You and Matt, huh? Is he the one that you’re hooking up – sorry, I mean, that you’re in a relationship with then?”

“Oh shut up, Liv!” Bonnie snapped, shaking her head and closing the door behind her.

* * *

**June 2013**

_Whitmore_

When Bonnie turned the corner as she walked from the showers to her dorm room, she spotted a familiar dark-blue suited figure walking away from her on the corridor. 

Her heart stuttered, the beginning of panic rising. He disappeared round a corner and without thinking, she dashed after him, her flip-flops slapping on the floor. The bend led to the stairs landing and he was half-way down the steps when she caught up with him. 

She grabbed his wrist, spinning him so hard, he flailed. “You!”

“Hey!” yelped the... 

… completely unfamiliar person, clinging to the handrail and staring at her as if she was crazy.

Bonnie dropped his wrist quickly. “I... I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Embarrassment burned through her as she realized just how ridiculous she seemed, standing in her bathrobe, waylaying a complete stranger.

Too late, she noticed the clipboard he had dropped. Of course. A building inspector.

Sometime during the past school year, Whitmore College had been sold. Aaron Whitmore’s death had marked the extinction of the Whitmore dynasty and the college and the rest of their legacy had been sold off in parts or as a whole to either a consortium of investors or another wealthy dynasty, depending on which rumor you believed. No one quite seemed to know much about the new owners of the university beside the facts that they had chosen to keep the old name and they planned several massive improvements to the campus real estate. Extensive construction work had been scheduled for the summer; flyers and emails were being sent around to residents in affected dormitories, including Bonnie’s own. 

So this was not the first time that Bonnie had seen an inspector prowling around the dormitory. 

It was the first time she had assaulted one, though. 

The man gave her an uncertain nod, still staring at her warily. She took a step back, tried for a placating smile. In turn, she got a “lady, you’re crazy” look before he picked up his board, and all but ran away from her.

 

It was an honest mistake, Bonnie told herself, as she plodded back to her room. After all, how many men over six feet wore a navy suit in the middle of June? It was quite funny, really. 

But she couldn’t muster any humour for the next unexpected encounter that was waiting for her. 

This time it was in the form of two tickets lying beside the pyjamas she had spread on her bed.

She picked up the first one and stared at it, her eyebrows climbing higher and higher in her face.

“What is this?” she asked, whirling to the girl that was sitting at her desk, textbooks spread in front of her.

Elena turned to give her a bored look. “A choice. Europe or Portland. Pick one.”

“Here’s a thought,” Bonnie muttered, crumpling the hard paper in her fist. “How about neither?”

Elena didn’t blink. “There are more copies where that came from. If you want me to choose for you, I’d be happy to.”

Bonnie took a deep breath, counted back from ten, and reminded herself that her childhood friend could no longer survive an aneurysm. “I signed up for summer classes.”

“Cancel them. With all the construction that’s happening, you’ll spend half your time looking for your class, and the other half getting there. Besides, if anyone has earned an extra semester in college, it’s you. What you haven’t earned is the right to carry all that baggage inside you for three more months. So this is what I’ve come up with: We can have an all-expenses paid Eurotrip to fix us – or you have an all-expenses solo trip to Portland, where you can visit breweries, smell the roses, and fix whatever is going on between you and Kai Parker-”

“ _There’s nothing going on between me and Kai Parker!_ ” Bonnie hissed, hands balled into fists.

The fire place – which had been cold and dead all day – came to life, flames rising with a roar, and spitting embers.  

Elena’s chair scraped, as she shifted hastily away, and Bonnie took another deep shuddering breath.

The flames went down. 

“Obviously,” Elena deadpanned.

Bonnie sat down abruptly.

For a moment, the room was silent while Bonnie felt her head bow under the weight of her friend’s – former friend’s?- gaze.  

“Europe, it is then,” Elena said softly, and she turned back to her desk. “Chicks before dicks. I like it.”

Bonnie laughed in disbelief. “You can’t make me go anywhere, you know.”

“Wanna bet?” Elena murmured.

Bonnie glared at the other girl’s serene face, at her brown eyes dancing with mischief. Then Bonnie turned to her bed and picked up the second ticket. “Company of three?”

“You, me, Caroline. We all need the therapy. Plus, I think it’s embarrassing that all three of us hit twenty without ever leaving this country, don’t you?”

“Just us three? No …  Salvatore in company?” For the first time, Bonnie was intrigued. 

“Nope.”

“And what does your boyfriend think about that?”

Elena laughed loudly. “Chicks before dicks. Also …  who effing cares?”

Bonnie turned her face so that Elena won’t see the smile that was threatening to form.

Instead, she muttered, “I’ll think about it.”

She ignored the triumphant look on Elena’s face and put on her pyjamas. She was hanging up her bathrobe, when she remembered her earlier encounter.

“Did someone come in here while I was in the shower?”

When Elena didn’t answer right away, Bonnie turned to her friend. “Elena?”

Elena raised her head from the books she had apparently already retreated into. “Sorry. What, Bonnie?”

“I thought I saw … ” When Elena kept looking at her blankly, Bonnie shook her head. “Never mind. It was nothing.”

Elena shrugged, her head already bowing back over her books. 

Bonnie sat down on the bed and stared fluffing her pillow when her gaze caught that first ticket – the crumpled paper with PDX peeking through the wrinkles. 

Under Bonnie’s gaze, it levitated into the air and burst into flames. 

She caught Elena’s gaze as the ashes fell to the ground – a gaze filled with pity and worry – and Bonnie lay back on the bed abruptly, turning her back to her friend, staring unseeingly at the wall in front of her.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

The time difference between Virginia and Oregon caught up with Bonnie sometime in the early hours of the morning; she woke up abruptly and so decidedly that she knew there was no point trying to go back to sleep soon.

She stared up at the ceiling and thought of all the events that had led her to now – in Portland, in  _his_ sister’s home, as she counted down the hours before she would see him again for the first time in a year.  

When she had returned to Mystic Falls last month – after almost a year away from her hometown – their makeshift crew of town defenders had been divided about reaching out to Portland for help. Bonnie had been the one to finally shut down that idea. 

Yes, she had admitted, the Gemini had fought and won against the heretics in the past.But, she reminded them, their gang of seven – Bonnie, Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Tyler, Matt and Enzo – had fought and won over worse than a pair of vampire-witch freaks over the years, hadn’t they? They didn’t need the unpredictable Gemini, she had insisted. And the others had mostly believed her. 

But weeks had passed and the bodies kept piling up. And maybe, at the back of Bonnie’s mind, was the hope that the Gemini – that  _he_  – would reach out to them first. But it never happened. 

Then they had suffered a loss of one of their own and Bonnie knew it was time to swallow her pride. This was the only option left to them. 

Although there was one option open to  _Bonnie_. She could pack her bags, move out of Virginia and leave Mystic Falls, Whitmore, and whatever other territory the heretics chose to claim, to the mercy of fate. After all, she had done it before, sort of. And in the past year, the two towns had survived through a rampage of nomadic werewolves, and an inexplicable visitation from a dragon of all things – all without her. Surely, Mystic Falls-Whitmore could weather a pair of misplaced heretics. 

But Bonnie knew, deep down, that this time around, she wouldn’t do it – couldn’t. This was one battle that she won’t be able to walk away from. 

The days leading up to this trip had seen her emotions run the gamut from dread to anticipation. It changed with every passing day, every passing hour. The only constant thought in her head was – 

_Get it over with._

And in the next twenty-four hours, regardless of the outcome, she would. 

From the corner of her eye, she caught the flash of her phone’s alert light. She picked it up and saw a message from Matt. Heart beating, she tapped it open and then heaved a relieved sigh. 

The town was quiet today. No deaths. No incidents. No news was the best news.

She tapped a response back. “I’m getting help. Keep your fingers crossed.”

He buzzed back immediately. “Take care of yourself there, OK?” That brought a smile to her face. 

There was an older message from Caroline that must have come in during dinnertime, asking how things were. Bonnie decided to take the chance and call back. It was probably breaking dawn in Whitmore and Caroline was usually an early riser. 

“Hey,” Caroline’s voice sounded sleepy.

OK, she was  _usually_ an early riser. 

“Hey. Sorry to wake you.”

“No. No problem. How’re you doing? How was your trip? How’re Alaric and Jo and the kids? Hope Damon is behaving himself.”

“OK. Fine. Great. He doesn’t have a choice.” She grinned. “Did I miss anything?”

Caroline laughed softly. “Nice one. So …  have you seen him?”

Bonnie snuck a glance across the room, where she could make out Liv’s sleeping form in the dark. “I’ll see him tomorrow.”

Care sighed. “Bonnie, I know-”

“I think Jo’s at the door. Talk to you later?”

“Sure, Bon. ’Night.”

“’Night, Care.”

She stayed up for an hour after that, thoughts like ghosts chasing through her head. When she finally did sleep back, she dreamt of red-cloaked, redheaded heretics, the vengeful face of Lily Salvatore, winged stars falling in flames from the sky, and a warlock with grey eyes and a streak of white shooting out of his dark hair.


	2. the council (of the creepy-ass twin-murdering coven)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie vs the Gemini Council

# 

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Damon observed.

Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose, and put her sunglasses firmly back in place. “I won’t.”

“Well, you look it. Are you coming down with something? Need a little blood?”

Bonnie stared at the outstretched wrist and felt like retching. She wound down the side glass, took a whiff of fresh air. “I’m fine, Damon. It’s just the heat.”

“Whatever you do, don’t throw up in the car.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said dryly.

“You’re not nervous, are you? The great Bonnie Bennett? Nervous about seeing this punk?” 

“I said I’m fine.”

“I mean, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you dragged me all the way to Portland because you needed some moral support to meet this guy.”

Bonnie bit back her words. The last thing she wanted was to get into another over-prolonged bickering session with Damon. It was the strangest thing. If anyone had asked her anytime since over a year – anytime since her second trip from 1903 to be precise – Bonnie would have described her relationship with Damon Salvatore as borderline estranged; but a month back in Mystic Falls and they’d fallen into a kind of groove – less than the friends she’d thought they had become in 1994, but more than the reluctant allies they had been for most of their acquaintance.A compromise that only time, and time apart, had enabled them to achieve. 

It was comforting, in its own way. If she and Damon could reach an understanding despite all the blood and betrayal in their shared past, then maybe someday, she and  _him_  could …

She almost laughed out loud at the hopelessly naïve train of her thoughts.

_Yeah, right_ , she thought bitterly. 

Beside her, Damon droned on. “I mean, it was great to see Alaric and Jo all over again, don’t get me wrong. I’m just wondering how much help a vampire is when you need to meet the great Gemini coven leader. Especially when you’re meeting over another vampire problem.”

“The operative word there being  _another_ ,” Bonnie couldn’t help quipping. “You being an on-going case.”

“Now, that’s the Bonnie I know and fear,” Damon crowed. “For a moment there, you got me worried.” 

She sighed.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls, 1903_

The red-clad figure was rising. 

The headless heretic was standing. Stood.

Horror was a bottomless pit opening in Bonnie’s stomach as the creature she had just decapitated five minutes ago, stretched out its hands and caught the head that flew into them.

_It can’t be._

When they were children, and the girls still played with dolls, all three of them – Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline – had one day got into a fight with Jeremy Gilbert and with some clever lying, put most of the blame for it on him. The next day after school, they had gone to Elena’s house and seen their My Little Pony dolls lined up on the bed with their heads ripped off.

Watching the heretic carefully place his head back on his shoulders, the red sizzle of magic as it sealed seamlessly into place, the red coat of blood on its neck the only sign of what had happened before – was like a macabre call back to that day.  

_I took off its head!_

_‘Suckers don’t die easy.’_

_Yes, but not that they couldn’t die at all!_

The eyes blinked open, dark fathomless pools of swirling black magic, and Bonnie felt her brain breaking as she watched its lips part in a chant, a hand stretched out at her.

_How do you kill something that can’t die?_

She was tensing to push back the hex – the only thing that she could manage to think of at the moment was to send its own magic back at it – when something slammed into her side and she went down, rolling across the floor in a tangle of legs and arms.

She came to a stop with her back on the floor and her attacker on top of her and for the second time that night, Kai Parker was in her face.

“What the hell are you still doing here?”

She was too dazed to answer. She pushed back at his shoulders but his whole body was locked around her own. 

“Get off me,” she managed, weakly.

“I told you to get out. I told my –” he breathed hard, then turned his head and cursed loudly. 

Bonnie shifted, trying again to push him off her but it only seemed to make her  _fit_  into him some more. She shivered, and it must have been a mixture of her fury at him and the adrenaline running through her veins that made her feel so enflamed. 

He turned back to her and his eyes were smouldering. 

“Stop that,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

“Let me go, Kai,” she said weakly.

“Oh, I will,” he snarled.

She blinked and the chaos of the wedding hall vanished.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Liv was waiting for them in front of the diner. She gave Bonnie’s outfit the full up-and-down inspection, taking in her slick bun, her smart dark suit with the green camisole peeking out from underneath and her sensible shoes. She nodded approvingly.  

“Nice. You dressed up. That’s five points already with the Council.”

Liv herself was wearing a pantsuit and a complicated braid that made her look like a completely different person. 

She had fixed the zit, Bonnie noted with an inward smirk. The small observation broke her own bundle of nerves somewhat.

“I guess I’ll be taking those five points back then,” Damon drawled, hands in his jean pockets, leaning against the parked car. Bonnie wasn’t sure, but she strongly suspected that he wore either the exact same black T-shirt every-day or he had an infinite number of black T-shirts in the same style. 

“You can wear anything you like, Damon. You’re not coming.”

He straightened at that. “No way.”

“Coven rules. No vampires allowed in the Council halls.”

“Even if the coven leader vouches for me?”

“Especially when the Praetor does  _not_  vouch for you.”

“The what now?”

“That’s Gemini-speak for coven leader. Get used to it. And get used to not being included in the witchy stuff, vampire.”

“What the-” Damon started, advancing at Liv. 

Bonnie stepped between them. “It’s OK. Bunch of bigots, right? We considered this.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll go in, meet him, get the spell and I’ll be out in a jiffy.”

Damon looked over her head at Liv. “You Geminis are freaks. I’m not letting Bonnie in there by herself and I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

“Damon,” Bonnie started.

“Oh, he’s welcome to try,” Liv said, her eyes dancing. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when for example, your daylight ring suddenly stops working.”

Just like the witches’ house back at Mystic Falls, Bonnie thought, and she could tell from Damon’s face that he was remembering that, too. His powerlessness made him even more furious. She gave him a reassuring smile that belied her own nervousness. 

“I’ll be fine, Damon. He’s a good guy now, remember?”

“The same good guy we stabbed in the back a year ago. You never know when these things come up again.”

Bonnie looked away. “That’s water under the bridge. We’re even.” 

_“We’re even, Bonster.”_

She suppressed a shiver.  

“You’re actually meeting with the Council,” Liv interjected.

They stared at her. “I thought I was meeting with K- your leader.”

“You can’t just waltz in here and get a one-on-one with the Praetor. There’s a chain of command. You climb it.”

“But-”

“Anyway, he sits on the council, too. As the head.”

Bonnie thought about that, then faked a grin for Damon. “See, even better?”

“Better? That’s the council of the creepy-ass twin-murdering coven, remember? They’re probably the ones who came up with the twin-murdering rules,” he retorted back but seemed to back down. “Make sure Judgy gets out of there in one piece, Liv,” he warned. “Or you’re answering to me.” 

Liv gave him the finger. He answered with a big smile, fangs and all. Outside the Saltzmans’s house, his vampiric nature had free reign. 

Bonnie shook her head at the both of them. 

Liv opened the door to the diner with a big flourishing bow. Bonnie got a peek of its dim interior, before Liv stepped in behind her and the door closed. 

Then the diner vanished.

* * *

In a flash of colour, they stood in a huge hallway, walls and floor made of shiny, polished marble. A spiral staircase rose up in front of them, reaching to a ceiling that was so high, Bonnie couldn’t decipher the elaborate symbols etched into it. 

“Portal through the diner door,” Bonnie said curtly, hoping her voice did not betray how awestruck she felt. “Neat.”

Liv threw her a look that told Bonnie she wasn’t fooling anyone. Then she led her across the hall. There were two large doors on the east side and she pushed them open, standing to the side to let Bonnie through.

Bonnie curled her hands into fists, and walked inside with her head held high. 

They stepped into a hall shaped in a half-circle.It was arranged like a church, with a half-dozen benches on either side of the aisle that Bonnie and Liv walked down. The far side of the hall, the curved area and where an altar would have been in a Catholic church, the floor was elevated about a foot from the rest of the hall and a high curved bench lined the wall. Behind the bench sat eleven men and women of varying ages and races, and from the prickling on her skin, Bonnie knew she was in the presence of very powerful witches.

Not a church, Bonnie realized as she and Liv sat down on the first row on the right side of the room. 

More like a courtroom. 

Was she on trial?

“Olivia Parker, you may approach the bench and state your prayer.”

The person that spoke was an elderly, snow-bearded white man seated at the left-side of the bench, closest to the empty chair in the centre. Joshua Parker. 

There were eleven people but the bench was clearly meant to be occupied by thirteen. Bonnie could tell because there were two empty spaces – one at the extreme left and one at the centre. Kai Parker was not here.

Bonnie bent down and stared hard at her hands, forcing down the relief and disappointment –  _mostly disappointment_ – that had risen inside her. 

Olivia walked to the centre of the hall, looked up at the bench and started talking.

A lot of what she said went over Bonnie’s head. It sounded like some complicated, legalistic formal form of greeting in a mixture of Greek and Latin during which Olivia acknowledged by name every person in the room. She barely even recognized her own name when Olivia mentioned her. And there seemed to be all kinds of magic constantly at work, the purposes of which Bonnie couldn’t grasp but she could still feel the tingling sense of. 

After a while, Olivia was done talking and silence settled in the room.

“Let Ms. Bennett give her own testimony,” said an older, dark-skinned Latino woman that sat at the furthest seat to the left. 

Bonnie stood up awkwardly. “Hello. I mean, good afternoon.” She tried a smile. She didn’t get one in return. Biting back a grimace, she continued, “Thank you for seeing me on such short-”

Liv cleared her throat noisily. Bonnie stared. Liv cleared her throat again, and made an awkward beckoning kind of gesture with her shoulder.

It took Bonnie a moment, then she blushed. “Er …  excuse me. Sorry.” 

She walked out of her seat and came to stand beside Liv. Staring up at the non-smiling faces above her was even more disconcerting from this position. 

“So, thanks again for seeing me. It all started-”

The woman cut right through her words. “What measures have been taken to contain the heretics in Mystic Falls?” 

Bonnie blinked.  _Rude much, old lady?_  She thought but wisely, kept that to herself. “So far, vervain is the only thing that works. We’re pumping it into the drinking water. It’s a bit hard on the … ” 

The unsmiling faces were setting into harder lines and Bonnie quickly skipped over the part where she was about to say,  _“it’s a bit hard on the non-heretic vampires in town but they manage.”_

“Wards don’t hold up for long. The heretics just siphon out the magic from them. In fact, the best restraints right now are the old school bolts and bars, dosed with liquid vervain. Everything magical just ends up being more juice for their batteries, if you know what I mean.” She cringed. Not the most formal of expressions but really the most apt. 

“You confirm what Olivia stated, that the heretics reappeared in Mystic Falls exactly one month ago?” The question came from a slightly younger male wizard. 

“Yes.”

“And you are certain that these are of the group that we conquered during the Fourth Battle of Mystic Falls?”

“I recognized one of them. From the  _Battle_ ,” Bonnie replied. She supposed it was a battle of sorts. She had never thought of it that was before. She guessed she had been in so many of those high-powered confrontations of magic and violence that she took them for granted.  

The  _Fourth_? Left to Bonnie, she would have counted differently. 

“You could not have recognized any of the heretics. They wore hoods and you were carted off with the rest of the children and the mundanes.”

Bonnie’s jaw dropped. “I was not-” she began furiously but Joshua Parker had already cut in.

“Ms Bennett fought in that battle.She saved the lives of Isaiah Long, Antonia Genova and Judi Stewart and even beheaded one of the heretics. It resurrected, of course, but she did not know then they couldn’t be easily destroyed.”

One or two others murmured in agreement and looked at her with slightly less unsmiling faces.

The man that spoke before still looked sceptical. “I do not recall her presence. I do recall that the majority of the Mystic Falls contingent left the moment the heretics attacked. Your,” and she could literally hear the air quotes in his voice, “‘vampires’ abandoned us and eventually, so did you. Furthermore, these heretics were released as a result of your actions on behalf of these ‘vampires’ of yours.”

She could hear the blood rushing through her ears and she started speaking when Liv grabbed her elbow. Bonnie turned at the other woman and saw the warning in Liv’s eyes.

Her hand still firm on Bonnie, Liv spoke. “Inquiries into the release of the 1903 Prisoners were concluded during -” She rattled off the date in Latin[1]. “It is  _clusus_  to third parties, too.”

“She is not a third party. She was  _implicates_ [2],” the man said belligerently.“The  _venia_ [3] came from the Praetor,  _against_  the council’s recommendation. Her very testimony is suspect.”

“She is Sheila Bennett’s grand-daughter,” another man said sharply.

“With no formal  _Praecantatio Disciplina_ [4] _,_ ” the old lady, the first one that spoke, retorted. “She associates with vampires. Yes, members of our coven have entered short-term alliances with  _nefandus bestia_ [5], but her case is unprecedented. She has more loyalty to them than any witch of her acquaintance. We cannot in good faith place any value on her testimony without independent verification.”

Liv’s grip on her elbow was almost painful. Bonnie yanked herself away. 

“People are dying in Mystic Falls,” she said through gritted teeth. “Mundanes. Witches. Werewolves. Although you probably don’t care about them or the vampires. But what about your own kind? What about the Gemini mandate to protect mundane existence?”

“You will speak in turn.” Unsurprisingly, that was from the first young man – Mr. Asshat, Bonnie decided, mentally christening him.

“We are already aware of the casualties in question,” Joshua Parker said.

Bonnie started. “Already aware? You mean, you’ve known all along about this? And  _you’ve done nothing_?”

“You will speak-”

“Oh, shut up!” And it was satisfying to see all their stuffy faces bristle in outrage as one. Beside her, Liv covered her face with her hands. “The heretics have been on a rampage for a  _month_  and you’ve all been sitting on your collective asses while my so-called  _nefaria_  have been risking their lives for the town.”

“The heretics are only a danger because you let them out! If you hadn’t freed the ripper, none of this would have happened!”

And there it was.

Bonnie raised her hands. “I. am. sorry! OK? I did this. I know.  _Mea culpa.Mea maxima culpa_.” At least that much she knew. “But it’s done. They got out. Two remain. I’d kill them myself if I knew how. Nothing works. Not fire. Not decapitation. Not a stake through the heart. They don’t need an invitation. They can walk in daylight. These things are terrorising my town. Tell me what to do to end this and I’ll be on my way.” 

The old lady eyed Bonnie with disapproval written all over her face. “You’re here to present a prayer, young woman, not to make demands.” 

“Oh for heaven’s sake, where’s Kai Parker? I didn’t come all the way here to judged and lectured by you jerks. Where’s your blasted coven leader?”

Liv’s hands were still covering her face and now she moaned a little. 

The council erupted. They all seemed to be talking at once, a loud murmur of voices that increased in volume and intensity. Bonnie couldn’t make out the words. A lot of it was in Latin. Most of it was punctuated by sharp glares and gestures at Bonnie. 

After almost ten minutes of this, Joshua Parker raised his hands and they fell silent. 

“The council will convene privately. Ms Bennett, you may take your leave. We will inform you through Olivia-”

It took everything in Bonnie not to launch herself at them. “Oh my god, are you even listening to me? Don’t …  fucking  _inform_  me. Just tell me what to do!”

Liv gave her another hard pinch. Bonnie turned on her, eyes flashing …

* * *

… and they were now standing in the doorway of the diner.

Liv pushed her outside.

“What just happened?” Bonnie asked, gasping.

“You heard my father. Council is meeting in private now. Nice job pissing them off, by the way.”

Bonnie’s words were cut short by Damon rushing up to them.

“What’s going on? Did they cancel on you or what?”

She shook her head, blinking back the angry tears that were threatening to fall. “It’s over. I don’t know what they’re deciding. This was just a waste of time.” She started walking towards the car. 

Damon grabbed her shoulder. “What? We came all the way here when they’d already made up their minds? Is Kai in there? Daylight ring or not, I’m going to kick his-!”

“He wasn’t there. It won’t have made any difference. Let’s just go.”

“No, we can’t leave. They have to hear us out at least!”

“They did. I don’t …  I don’t think it made any difference.” 

“What’s going on? When did all this happen? You were in and out in like a second. I thought you left something in the car.”

Bonnie stared at him. It was suddenly clear what the confusion was. 

“Damon, I’ve been in there for almost half an hour.”

He stared back. “Huh?”

Both of them turned to look at Liv, who had been leaning against the car watching their exchange. 

She shook her head, smirking at Bonnie. “You really have no  _disciplina_  do you?” 

Bonnie took a step forward and Liv backed away, her hands coming up in mock-surrender. “Sorry!You stepped through a portal to the Gemini headquarters and time works a little differently there. That’s all.” She looked at Damon. “She kind of lost her temper there, too. Which, for the record, is never a good idea when you’re talking to eleven bad-ass witches. Anyone of them could have hexed you into a frog just by squinting. Let’s not forget the fact that you came to them for a favour.” 

Bonnie scowled, feeling just a bit shamefaced. 

“And if that wasn’t bad enough,” Liv continued, “she demanded to speak to Kai! Like he was a store manager and the customer service clerks were giving you a hard time,” she shuddered. “I take back what I said last night. You didn’t find your inner bitch, Bonnie. You found your inner T-Rex.”

Damon guffawed and Bonnie kicked him until he stopped. “Ouch! You know you just proved her point?”

“Look,” Liv finished, “the Council will decide when they decide. You can’t rush these things.”

“People are dying,” Bonnie said miserably. “They’ve known about this for a month and they … ” She was tired. She was just so tired.

She opened the passenger door and sat down heavily. 

“Why can’t they just tell me how to kill these things? What the hell is the point of keeping it a secret? What’s the big deal?”

“You know, if any of you guys besides Tyler had stuck around during the battle, you’d have witnessed first-hand how to kill a heretic and probably realized why it’s a big deal,” Liv said mildly.

Damon at least, had the sense to look slightly guilty. 

Bonnie glared. “I didn’t stick around during the battle because-” 

_Kai._

Bonnie swallowed down the feelings of anger and disappointment and  _heartache_  that were consuming her. 

She had dreaded seeing him today. But at least she would have seen him and had that done and over with. Now, the chance of an encounter loomed ahead of her – in some vague, uncertain future – and the anticipation exhausted her. 

She was so tired.

She had given herself a clean break last year – or she had tried to. But somehow, she had still got dragged again into the middle of another supernatural battle. 

She had been fighting one supernatural battle or another since she was a teenager.

When would it ever end?

“Can we just go back now? We’ll stay a night and leave for Virginia in the morning. Whenever your Council make up their mind, they can reach me by magical email. They teach that in  _Praecantatio Disciplina,_ right?” she added nastily. 

“ _Googlas 101_ ,” Liv deadpanned.

Bonnie gave her a cutting glare and Liv had the sense to stay silent for the rest of the ride. 

She checked her phone when she remembered. No messages. Thank goodness for that at least. 

No news was good news.

* * *

Liv dropped off a few block to the Saltzmans’s home, claiming some vague errand. The rest of the drive home, Damon grumbled – while Bonnie silently agreed – that the blonde witch was skipping out on baby duty.

As he pulled up the driveway, they could already hear the clear sounds of babies wailing through the open window. 

Alaric was still in school and one twin needed a diaper change, the other needed a nap and Jo almost wept with relief at the sight of both of them. She all but threw the cranky baby into Damon’s arms then dragged Bonnie to the nursery to help with the other.  

“What am I supposed to do?” Damon called after Jo over the baby’s screams.

“Rock her, sing to her, cuddle her. You’re almost two hundred years old, Damon. Figure it out.”

In the nursery, Jo insisted on hearing everything that happened with the Council. Her eyes were sharp and attentive even as she changed her baby’s diapers with robotic efficiency as Bonnie narrated the disappointing events of the day while handing over the required equipment. 

“I came all the way here to be picked apart by a bunch of old snobs,” Bonnie concluded with a scowl.

Jo gave her a sceptical look while with one hand, she flipped over her progeny with a briskness that made Bonnie’s heart jump. “You shouldn’t have lost your temper.”

“That is so not what is important right now!”

“And then demanding to speak to the Praetor like that?” Jo tut-tutted. “Well, it’s too late to fix that. The council’s told you they’ll come to a decision and they will. You just have to be patient.” She beckoned to Bonnie to hold onto a waving arm while she pulled on the baby’s clothes.

“Why is everything up to the council, anyway? What’s the point of the coven leader then?”

Jo sat on the rocking chair with the now changed and freshly dressed child and threw Bonnie an amused glance. “You want Kai to play favourites for you?”

Bonnie felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Of course not! I just want to understand how things work with you Gemini. I’m not a political major but isn’t there a reason why the President calls the shots during a state of emergency?”

Jo snorted as she positioned her baby to nurse. “Bonnie, as we speak, there’s a vampire infestation in Brooklyn, the dragon-worshipping cults have been on the rise since last Fall, rumours of the Augustine Society being revived, and there’s the chance that one of the largest covens in the country is about to break their treaty with us.”

Bonnie blinked. “ _What?_ ”

“If any of  _those_  actualize,  _that_  would be a state of emergency. But two heretics in Mystic Falls? Seriously? If that were the case, the coven would have burnt down that town down years ago, and salted the ashes. Do you know how many times they considered that during your Klaus episodes …  or your Silas episodes … ? If all it takes are a couple of heretics, then just your sheer vampire population would be enough reason.”

“It’s not the same thing. They can’t be killed.”

“That you know of. You thought Klaus couldn’t be killed  …  until he could. And Silas. And every other threat you’ve faced,” she said calmly. She reached over and gave Bonnie a one-armed hug. “Hang in there, OK? Your town’s weathered through a lot worse.”

Bonnie bit her lip and looked away. “Could you … ” she cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you could speak to K- to your brother about this?”

“The council will recommend their decision to the leader in due time … ” she said and Bonnie groaned. Then Jo winked. “But if I give my twin brother a call and let him know how my day went, that’s not anybody’s business.”

“Thanks,” Bonnie said softly. She looked down at her fingers, which had automatically twisted in her lap at the new possibility of still meeting with  _him_  before her return to Virginia, and swallowed hard against the tension that threatened to rise within her. 

“Now please go get something to eat and make sure Damon isn’t snacking on my baby.”

An hour later, Alaric was home from school, the babies were both asleep, and Liv strolled in, curls bouncing and completely oblivious to Damon’s dirty looks. 

“Any word from the Council?” Bonnie asked at once.

To her disappointment, Liv shook her head. 

While Alaric and Jo were in the living room catching up, Liv dragged the others to the kitchen. Damon poured himself a glass of bourbon – ignoring Bonnie’s glare – and listened as Liv informed them that sometime during her still vaguely defined assignment, she had come up with the idea of the trio doing babysitting duty while the Saltzmans got a much needed date night.

Damon gulped. “We didn’t come here to-”

“We’ll do it,” Bonnie said at once. “I think it’s a great idea.” Despite everything, she could be generous to a friend. Besides, it won’t be the first time they’d juggle life-and-death with the boring minutiae of day-to-day existence. Babysitting for a night was nothing compared to organizing the Homecoming Dance while mentally duelling with an immortal dark wizard. 

Liv beamed at her and smirked at Damon. 

Half an hour after Liv had gone to tell Jo, the older woman came to them with a face wreathed with smiles and gave her two guests big hugs.

“Thank you so much! Once in a while the older witches come around to lend a hand but never for the whole night. This night will be the second time I’ve had sex since the twins were born.”

Damon, in the middle of a sip of bourbon, spat it out. 

“TMI?” Jo asked. “Sorry. When you’ve been through a pregnancy and birth, you tend to lose all filters. If I had a dollar for every doctor, nurse, intern, janitor that put their fingers up my-”

“I will watch your kids for  _two nights_  if you stop talking now!” Damon shouted.

Jo smiled broadly and left, dragging the girls with her.

It was fun, helping her pack for her short stay. There was the question of appropriate nightwear. Jo had a few post-baby ones that she was a little self-conscious about trying out. Bonnie thought she should go for it. Liv countered that Alaric would be lucky enough to be getting any. He won’t need any fancy wrapping.

That made Bonnie laugh so hard, she was in stitches for five minutes.

Alaric popped his head in just in time to see the gaggle of laughing women and took to his heels. 

It was Damon that eventually came to fetch Jo. 

“There’s a dude downstairs, fairly good looking, borderline alcoholic, I think he’s waiting for his date … ?”

“I’ll be down in five.” 

Liv called him back. “Remind him to stop for condoms.”

Damon Salvatore opened his mouth, and for the first time Bonnie could remember, nothing came out. 

“I don’t think so. No way am I going through all this ever again.”

Damon fled, chased away by malicious feminine laughter. 

Jo finally made it down with, to her husband’s great confusion, two overnight bags. 

The twins were asleep but Alaric still left Jo in the car to rush into the house one last time and give them a once over. As they all but dragged him out of the nursery, he repeated all of Jo’s instructions on feedings, changes and bedtimes with a few tips of his own. 

“Rachel loves being held just so.” He showed how to Damon who was clearly fighting a losing battle with his eyeballs. 

“We’ll be fine! Just go!” Liv said as she and Damon wrestled him into the car and slammed the door.

“Bye!” Bonnie called from the door.

“Have a good time, buddy,” Damon said with a knowing smirk.

“Have great sex, Jo!” Liv cooed. 

The Saltzmans finally made it out, the car pulling out the driveway to the cheers and hoots of the trio behind. The only things missing were a rope of cans dangling from the license plate and the Just Married sign. 

Bonnie glanced at Liv, then Damon, and she knew they were all thinking the same thing. 

This was the send-off they missed out on a year ago when the dream wedding turned into a nightmare. They hadn’t even finished the ceremony. The first heretic had appeared in the middle of Jo’s vows. 

It was her brother that had saved her that night. 

Frowning now, as unwanted thoughts filled her head, Bonnie led the way back into the Saltzmans’s house.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

With a few hours left before the Saltzmans’ wedding ceremony started, it wasn’t a good sign that the wedding planner was freaking out more than the bride. Apparently, no one had done Caroline Forbes the courtesy of asking her approval of the last minute changes to the event.Jo had done her best to explain to the irate vampire that as the daughter of the former Praetor, sister of the current one, and likely mother of the future one, Josette Parker’s wedding was the Gemini equivalent of a Royal Wedding. While she had been merely Jo Laughlin, estranged and prodigal daughter – and all the witches had been hiding from their new leader – the ceremony was entirely her affair, and it was going to be a simple event with Elena standing for her, and Damon standing for Alaric. But now the Gemini Coven had recently undergone some sort of reconciliation with their leader, and as a show of good faith, they had been given permission to essentially hijack his twin sister’s wedding. 

Caroline was having none of that. 

Bonnie was walking slowly through the chaotic event hall, searching for her friend with all the foreboding of a bearer of bad news. The floral contractor had called and Caroline would not like what they had to say. It was just one more thing cutting it close on an event that, according to Caroline, was already threading the line between a success and a disaster. As Bonnie weaved through workmen carrying ladders and drills, and supervisors yelling at the top of their lungs, Bonnie feared that the odds were on disaster.

She slowed even more as she passed a cluster of dusty hunks surrounding a site where a large chandelier was being hoisted, and spotted Elena and Stefan Salvatore in the distance. 

Elena was standing still with arms crossed; under her straight dark hair, her face was bowed and grave. In contrast, Stefan was uncharacteristically animated, pacing in a tight arc around her, arms gesticulating wildly as he talked quickly. Bonnie was too far to hear him but clearly, something was wrong and a few days ago, her curiosity might have been piqued enough to walk over. 

Now she did an about-face and walked  _away_ , praying that she wasn’t about to be dragged into cleaning up a new supernatural mess.

She searched, now more eagerly, for Caroline. Her friend was still nowhere in sight but Bonnie could see a trio of well-dressed women standing along the edge of the canopy that still lay on the open area. They were from a group of guests that had arrived early and that Jo had introduced to everyone earlier as ‘family friends from Portland’. Bonnie didn’t need that cryptic description to tell her what her own witch intuition had picked up first.

These were witches. Gemini witches. 

And finally, Bonnie spotted Caroline – and in the nick of time, too! Her friend was striding at almost vamp-speed towards the trio, with a look on her face that made Bonnie believe that a vampire-witch war was about to be declared.

Bonnie all but ran to her friend’s side, arriving at the start of a near-heated conversation. 

“There’s room for Liv to stand with her sister but that’s it,” Caroline was saying vehemently. “We can’t add any more places to the bridal train.”

“Unacceptable.” The sharp word came from a petite, matron-type woman. Her magical aura was taut, competent, and Bonnie could tell that she wasn’t someone to cross lightly. But even with that, from the steel in her gaze as she gazed condescendingly  _up_  at Caroline, it was evident that she was capable – and willing – to set the vampire on fire.  

Behind her hovered two teenage girls – one dark-skinned, and slender with darkish red curls – and another white with straight black ponytails. Their auras hummed with magical proficiency that Bonnie envied to see in witches their ages. They looked about 15, 16 at most. 

“I’m sorry,” Caroline was saying in a tone that sounded the opposite of sorry, “but we’ve already rehearsed the stage arrangements. I hope,” she gave the two girls a smile that made Curly flinch and Ponytails bristle, “you girls aren’t too disappointed. You can be bridesmaids some other day.”

“These girls are not to be mere  _bridesmaids_ ,” the woman retorted. “They are representations of the covenant between the coven and the  _Regium_ , portals in human form for ancestral invocation, essentials to the completion of the  _Nuptialem orationem_  that will be cast on the candidates this night.”

Caroline blinked. “The what for the what in the what now?”

The woman looked ready to explode. “I cannot believe Joshua put me in this position, where I need to explain our rituals to a-a … _suc-_!”

Bonnie inhaled quickly, preparing for a quick intervention – Caroline looked like if she was about to vamp out – but the bride herself beat her to the punch. 

“Dame Bethany!” Jo all but shouted, appearing as if by magic between the warring factions. “You forget that not everyone has your flair of being a master of protocol. It’s really quite complex, even for me.” She laughed merrily. “I am beyond honoured to have your input in this, especially with such short notice.”

The older woman mellowed slightly. “Speak nothing of it. This duty usually falls to me and I always rise to the occasion. Which is why,” she said, eyeing Caroline, “this …   _person_   …  needs to step aside for m-”

Caroline took a menacing step forward. “Not on your-”

Her words ended in a muffled shriek when Bonnie daintily ran her heel into her best friend’s foot. 

“But we can’t spare you. There’re too many other things that need your attention,” Jo said sweetly. “Leave Tonia and Judi with me. Of course, they’re going to be in the ceremony.” – Caroline gasped – “Will the boys also be included?” She smiled at the teenage girls who were staring at her with mingled awe and terror.

The older witch sniffed. “Of course, they will. I’ll keep the children close, if you don’t mind. Too many  _nefaria_  wondering around for my comfort.” She eyed Caroline balefully. Then she seemed to check herself. “On consideration, you keep them. I don’t want you or your father to swap them out of the ceremony at the last minute and give their places to some other family.”

Jo gasped. “We would never-”

The woman sniffed again. “It’s been done before. And bear you mind, Josette, the Stewart and the Genova families will not take the insult lightly.” She turned to the girls. “ _Behave_.”

Once again, she had to stare up, but her face, her voice, and apparently her sheer personality was enough to make them look absolutely terrified at the idea of whatever would happen to them if they didn’t behave.

With one last smile at Jo, and one last withering glare at Caroline, and a measuring glance at Bonnie, she left. 

Jo smiled brightly at the girls who were now staring at her nervously. “Girls, could you go into my trailer, and try out your clothes?”

With a look of relief, the girls scampered off and the cheery mask on Jo’s face slipped off to reveal the strain under it. 

“Jo, you can’t seriously…” Caroline started warningly.

“Uh oh, Caroline, not you, too.” Jo groaned. “I have more than enough to deal with today with  _her_  as my matron of honour.” She shuddered. 

“Jo, are you OK?” Bonnie asked worriedly.

“No, I am not. I can’t wait until this is over,” Jo declared. Then she peered at Bonnie. “How are you holding up? I was coming over to check on you.”

Caroline whirled on Bonnie. “Oh, Bonnie, I can’t believe I forgot to ask. Are you OK? Do you need some blood? Shouldn’t you take a seat or something?”

Bonnie tried not to flinch. It was not the first time that she had been drilled like this about her health that day. She supposed it made sense considering recent events – Lily Salvatore violently gate-crashing last night’s bachelorette’s party and Bonnie ending up waking up in the hospital – but she was simply not used to this degree of scrutiny and over-commiseration. Frankly, she was finding it unnerving.  

Especially now as Caroline vamp-sped to grab a chair and forcibly pushed Bonnie into it. 

“I’m fine,” Bonnie said, trying to stand, only to be shoved back in. “Seriously, Care!”

Caroline scowled at her. “I don’t know why you couldn’t just take the day off to rest and show up in the evening. And if you have to be here, why aren’t you even dressed?” She looked at Bonnie’s jeans and shirt with distaste

Bonnie glared back. “If I hadn’t shown up when I did, that old lady would have given you an aneurysm or worse!”

Caroline snorted. “Oh, please, I could take her.” She whirled at Jo. “Who the hell was that old bitch anyway? And why’s she suddenly the new wedding planner? I thought you asked me to run things when your old one cancelled?”

Bonnie and Jo shared a furtive glance. If memory served, what happened had less to do with  _anyone_ asking Caroline – and more to do with Caroline showing up, seeing a vacancy – and putting herself in her favourite spot – in charge. 

But now was not the time to split hairs. 

“I explained to you about the Gemini being involved. Believe it or not, there was a lot of political manoeuvring that went on to get those girls in the ceremony. You just have to work around them, Caroline and …  all the other changes.”

“What other changes?” Caroline shrieked.

Jo waved her hand dismissively, panicking Caroline further. “Caroline, just roll with it, OK? Half of this stuff won’t make sense to you anyway; if they want to change anything, let them. This ceremony is important for my father – and my brother.” She glanced at Bonnie when she said the last.

Bonnie was suddenly grateful for the chair Caroline procured. She felt like if a thunderbolt had hit her. She had been so focused on throwing herself into Jo’s wedding, a desperate effort to distract herself from everything that had been going on in her life recently that she had completely failed to realize what was now so stupidly obvious. 

_He_  was going to be here. How could he not be? It was his sister’s wedding, a now-Gemini affair, of which he was leader. For the first time in the weeks since they returned from 1903, Bonnie was going to come face to face with Kai Parker.

In real life, at least. Because in her dreams – nightmares, he was  _always_  there. 

“It’s your wedding, Jo,” Caroline said furiously but Bonnie could barely hear her; her friends’ voices, and the sounds of the hustle and bustle around them drowned out completely by the storm in her own head, by his voice – from memory, from nightmare – mocking her in her head. 

_“You and I are even now.”_

_“Do you think you could keep screwing people over and getting away with it?”_

_“Believe me, I’ve changed_ _…_ _”_

_“Your magic can’t protect you from me.”_

_I LIED._

The last wasn’t a memory of anything he said, but of what he left her on his pager, the LED symbols flashing mockingly at her as she woke up, soaked in her blood and completely alone.

Bonnie could almost smell wet iron, almost hear the roar of silence that had been her constant companion for five months. She felt sweat pouring out of her skin, and told herself to snap out of it, but the bottomless pit of weeks of suppressed emotions was suddenly yawning open, threatening to swallow her  …

“Bonnie.”

The impeding panic attack receded as abruptly as it started, and Bonnie stared up at Elena’s worried face – and a whole crowd of people. Stefan Salvatore, his face stark, Caroline and Jo, their faces anxious, were all peering at her. Bonnie blushed, embarrassed, especially when Stefan’s eyes seemed to blaze at her; then he looked away, mumbled something and walked off.Caroline turned to watch him go. 

Elena gave him a worried glance, but her eyes went back to Bonnie.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her newly warm aura shimmering with concern.

Bonnie nodded, squeezed out a smile. “Of course.”

“I told you she should have stayed in the hospital,” Jo said, as if Bonnie hadn’t spoken.

“It’s not too late,” Caroline said, staring at Bonnie with a glint in her eye.

Hastily, Bonnie burst out the bad news she had previously been dreading to deliver. “The floral contractor’s truck broke down. They can’t promise to deliver the flowers on time!”

The effect was instantaneous. Caroline let out a scream, then she yanked out her phone and started punching it like if she was loading bullets into a revolver. Jo threw up her arms in the air and cursed. Elena started firing out alternatives. Caroline shushed both of them, all but shoving them away to give her space. As if on cue, one of the contractors that had apparently been hovering near all this while, approached Jo and after a few words, she and Elena walked away with her. 

Elena threw Bonnie back one more anxious glance which Bonnie returned with a big toothy smile – that vanished the moment Elena turned her back. 

Caroline was good, Bonnie thought from her own vantage point in her chair. In a few minutes, she had come up with a Plan B.

“Great. We’ll pick them in 5. Do  _NOT_  screw up again or I will  _END_  you.”

She shut off the call. Bonnie jumped to her feet. “You need someone to get the flowers? I’ll go.”

Caroline frowned. “I was going to ask Matt to do it, and I don’t think you’re up to –”

“Up to what? Leaning against the truck and pointing while Matt carries the bouquet? You know you can’t send him alone. He won’t have a clue what he’s supposed to bring along and there’s no time for any more screw-ups.”

Caroline hesitated. “I should probably ask Elena.”

“Care.”

Bonnie’s sudden grave voice clearly startled Caroline. The two girls locked gazes.

“I  _need_  to do something. Don’t put me on timeout.”

Caroline nodded slowly, understanding passing over her face. She of all people should get it. It was barely twenty-four hours that she had turned up from wherever she had been hiding out since her humanity came back, and Bonnie knew half of the reason that Caroline had thrown herself into organizing Jo’s wedding wasn’t just because she was a control freak. 

It was in the moments of ‘peace’ that the demons inside shouted the loudest. 

“OK,” Caroline said with a sigh, then laughed when Bonnie hugged her. “One more thing, though.” She fished out a small case from her purse. A groom’s cravat. “Matt’s over at Alaric’s. Please make sure the blushing groom gets this. Apparently he forgot to pick it up yesterday.”

Both girls sighed and rolled their eyes in tandem.  _Men_. 

“Make sure Matt toes the line. Er …  also, don’t tell Elena …  She’ll probably freak out if she finds out you’ve gone.”

“Elena’s probably doing a mini-rehearsal now with Liv Parker and the new bridesmaids.”

“They’re not bridesmaids,” Caroline corrected dryly. “They are representations of the covenant between the coven and the  _Regium_ , portals in human form for hocus pocus mumbo jumbo.”

Both of them laughed, and Bonnie felt her heart lightening. “See you around, Care. Try not to kill anybody from Jo’s coven.”

“I make no promises,” Caroline said darkly.

But Bonnie was already punching her phone for Matt’s number, walking away rapidly, and telling herself that after getting the flowers with Matt, she had every intention of coming back for the ceremony, every intention of actually standing in the same space with Kai Parker and spending all of it wondering when he was going to try to kill her again.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Bonnie was in the kitchen, making a sandwich. One of the twins – Martha? Rachel? – was in her high chair, playing with a spoon. Bonnie had just fed her all by herself, which had gone on better than she had feared. Liv was having a shower. Damon had claimed he was going to have one – and disappeared just before the twin’s meal – and reappeared just as conveniently after. 

He was hunting for bourbon  _again_  as Bonnie sliced and diced when her phone buzzed. She smiled when she saw who was calling. “Hi Matt.”

“Hey, Bon. How are you? How did it go with the Gemini council?”

Bonnie sighed. She glanced at Damon who had found his bourbon, and was clearly listening in. He gave her a commiserating look as she told Matt an abbreviated version of events.  

“They’ve got some nerve,” he declared when she finished. “You almost killed yourself trying to save their asses that day!”

He seemed more outraged by the personal attacks on Bonnie’s character, than on the lack of a firm commitment to help. 

“Well, they didn’t see it that way,” she said.

Matt muttered something that sounded suspiciously obscene under his breath. “So …  are you going to stick around to hear from them? There’s no rush. Things are under control here … ”

“We’re coming back tomorrow.”

“Good,” he said, sounding very relieved. 

“Aren’t you disappointed we’re coming back empty?”

“I’m happier you’re coming back soon. Screw the Gemini. Half the time, we can’t tell whether they’re supposed to be the good guys or the bad guys. At least if you’re back in Mystic Falls, I won’t have to worry about anything happening to you over there.”

Her heart warmed. “We’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Good.” He paused. “Hope you’re keeping Damon in line?”

She snorted and Damon said loudly, “I can hear you, Donovan!”

“I know,” Matt retorted then his voice went softer. “Bonnie, I hope you’re not letting what those freaks said get to you?”

Had she been so transparent? Bonnie wondered. “I’m not,” she lied.

“Mmmm …  Come home soon, OK?”

Damon threw her a funny look as she put away her phone. “Donovan’s keeping tabs on you.”

“He’s right to be wary, I guess. It wasn’t really that long when Liv and Luke tried to kill off Stefan and Elena.” 

Which was one more reason to loathe this life, of fluid alliances and shifting loyalties, where one moment you could be fighting side by side and the next moment, you could fighting to the death with the same person.

“Or that Caroline snapped Luke’s neck,” Damon continued as he grinned around his mug. “Now that I think about it, the poor guy was doomed from the start.”

“Damon.”

“How does the whole merge thing work, anyway? Is he rattling somewhere in Kai’s head? Can they hold a conversation?”

“Damon.” 

“Though I guess, Kai’s head was already so filled with crazy, one more voice won’t have made a difference. But that’s not why,” he said, abruptly, “Donovan is keeping tabs.”

“Damon!”

She finally broke through to him. He boggled his eyes at her “Wha-” then did a double take at Liv, standing at the kitchen door and staring. 

“Oops,” he deadpanned.

A tense moment followed. Liv’s face was blank, but her hands shook slightly where they rested against her sides. Damon held his mug with two hands, in a protective-like gesture, and shrugged. “I’m sorry?” he offered, his eyebrows waggling.

Bonnie nearly threw her knife at him.

But it seemed to do the trick. Liv pushed past them to the girl in the high chair – who had apparently fallen asleep without anyone noticing. “Damon, the day I let you get under my skin, is the day hell freezes over,” she whispered loudly as she gently freed the baby from her restraints. She gathered up her niece and left the kitchen without a backward glance.

Damon turned to Bonnie with an exaggerated look of relief. “Wow,” he breathed dramatically. “For a moment there, I was-”

“Congratulations,” Bonnie hissed. “You just achieved a new low on the insensitivity scale.”

“Oh come on, BonBon. You heard the girl. She’s moved past it.”

“And you would know this from all the people in your life you’ve lost, and  _moved past_?” 

He gave her a pained look. “I’ve lost my fair share, Bonnie.”

“Really?” she snapped. “Like whom exactly, Damon?  _And it doesn’t count if they came back_.” 

He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it, and shut it. “I think I’ll go  …  stock up on diapers.”

“You do that.” 

He shuffled off. 

She turned back to her sandwich.

* * *

The twins were playing a new game – a ‘take turns waking up and driving everyone batty’ game. Barely a few moments after Bonnie finished her sandwich, a sharp cry emitted from the monitor. 

She and Liv hurried to the nursery to retrieve the screaming child before she woke her sister. But it was already too late. The other girl was stirring when they left. And a few minutes later, Bonnie was struggling to pin down the wriggling, crying baby – Rachel or Martha, she really needed to know their names – while Liv fiddled with the diaper and tried to block the sound of the other twin’s screams coming from the baby monitor. 

“You’re putting it the wrong way,” Bonnie suggested.

“You want to do it yourself?”

“No.”

“Then shut up!” 

“It’s upside down.” 

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

The cries through the monitor increased in pitch. 

“Where the hell is Damon?!” Liv screamed again.  

Bonnie had no idea. But she knew this much – he was getting an aneurysm to end all aneurysms when he returned. She suspected the “stock up on diapers” was a ruse. They found the extra diapers – right where it made sense to have extra diapers, in the closet in the nursery. But by then, Damon had taken off and that was an hour ago.

“OK, I’ve got it. I’ve got you. Dear, dear, now. Auntie Liv’s not completely useless,” Liv said, now progressing from diaper to clothes. “I-I think I can manage now. Maybe you can check on Martha-”

Something like an internal bell rang inside Bonnie’s head but before she could chase the meaning, the sound-activated monitor suddenly went silent. 

Without the cries from the baby upstairs, the house felt deathly quiet. 

Bonnie’s heart stuttered. She stared at Liv over the baby between them. Liv had the same look on her face – more panic, than relief. Martha’s sudden silence was more likely to be very bad, than very good. 

Without a word, she was on her feet and half-way out the door and that when was the monitor came back on.

They could hear a baby cooing happily, then a lower, deeper-toned voice cooing back at it.

Her heart jumped and Bonnie took off. She thought she heard Liv shout something after her but she couldn’t stop, panic rising in her as she rushed upstairs. 

Half way there, she felt it or rather, she recognized it. That alarm that had rang in her head just before the baby stopped crying.  

The realization almost sent her stumbling down the steps. 

She got to the nursery, slowly, her feet dragging and she stopped at the closed door. 

Her heart was pounding, she realized, and she swallowed hard against the lump that had risen in her throat.

Through the door, she could still hear him, talking softly to the baby, his voice so low it seemed to echo in her ribs. She froze where she stood, her hands pressed flat against the door as she braced herself against the two equally powerful urges that were ripping through her: the urge to flee, turn around and keep running until the space of the world was between her and that voice; and the urge to fling open this door and run  _towards_  it. 

She did neither. Just stood there for as long as it took her to take a deep breath and count down from ten. 

Then she pushed the door open.

He stood by the window with the baby over his shoulder. Martha lifted her head, the baby’s eyes shining serenely.

Then he turned.And there was nowhere to look. Their eyes caught and Bonnie’s chest clenched. 

The last time she had seen him was over a year ago, just after the ordeal of Josette’s wedding. All this while, she thought she’d never be able to forget his face – the deep-set, steely grey eyes, the sharp jaw, the mouth that could be both wickedly cruel and dangerously persuasive – in so many ways. But memory was nothing compared to reality. And reality was tall and broad and a powerful,  _punishing_  stare that stripped her bare. Reality was a man whose presence was the torch that could still enflame her with fury and grief and regret and  … .

_No. No. No._

She shut those thoughts down completely. 

“Hello, Bonnie,” he said, and at the sound of his voice, soft and low, her flesh broke out in goose-bumps again.

She swallowed. Twice. She had to before she could get the word past her throat.

“Kai.”

* * *

[1] _Pythonicus Percontatio_   _duo milia et duodecim_

[2]implicated in an inquiry

[3]pardon

[4]formal magical education, either by apprenticeship or academy-trained

[5]supernatural creature (that is not a witch)


	3. Praetor Magus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie petitions the Praetor, and in the past, she makes a shocking discovery.

# 

* * *

**April 2013**

_Mystic Falls, 1903_

_“Sangima Maerma, Bernos Asescenda.”_

One hand on her torn side, the other tangled up with Kai’s around the Ascendant, she sang the words of the incantation and watched the colours of the Borealis mingle with the red blood in the snow.

She was bleeding, and she was probably dying, the only thing keeping her upright was his arm around her, his body supporting her. He fared barely better. The revival spell she had done on him an hour ago was wearing off and she could feel, from where her cheek rested on his chest, that his heart was slowing.

But all these registered absent-mindedly in her head. Even the bodies littered in a half-circle around her, stirring slightly, barely got her attention.

_“Sangima Maerma, Bernos Asescenda.”_

She was lost in the magic, in the mingling of their auras as they channelled each other, pouring everything they could into the spell. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. The strands of their individual magic seemed to knot into a tight rope that tugged at something deep, down inside her. 

She felt like if her soul was filling, stretching, like skin tight enough to rupture. Did he feel this too? She wondered, even as the lights changed over her head. Even as she could see, vaguely, noting with academic interest, that two of the figures around them were rising.

The question was still echoing in her head, as the colours around blended into white. Their bodies were falling upwards, into the white.  

They were Ascending.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Did he feel it too? Bonnie thought now, staring at Kai Parker from across the room. That pain like knives through one’s heart, like if she had fallen into a pit of spikes that had shredded her soul into so many pieces that no matter how she tried, she could never quite put herself back the way she was?

_All the King’s men and all the King’s horses_ _…_

The air between them seemed electrified, crackling with all the bad memories and bad blood they shared.

The urge to run – to him or away – had not left her and she just leaned against the wall, paralyzed and dizzy, torn between the two overwhelming impulses. 

He had looked almost peaceful, the short moment she had watched him unobserved. But now he too leaned against the wall by the window, the child’s head on his shoulder, and there was a storm of feeling in his eyes. 

Then Liv touched Bonnie’s shoulder and Bonnie jumped. 

“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Liv was saying. “Bonnie, I was trying to tell you not to worry. He usually pops over during the week.” 

Kai turned his gaze from Bonnie to shake his head slowly at his sister. He turned a little so that she could see that the baby’s eyes were almost shutting. His face softened as well. 

Something inside Bonnie seemed to break a little. 

Liv gave him a huge grin and two thumbs up. Then hooking her arm through Bonnie’s, she half-led, half-dragged Bonnie out of the room.

Bonnie could feel his eyes follow her as she left. 

Martha – or Rachel – was in the playpen, knocking against the bars with a wooden spoon. Bonnie kept an eye on her – or rather stared in her general direction while she tried to control the wild thoughts running through her head. 

_He’s here._

Her heart had stopped pounding at least. She had got that much under control.

“I ordered pizza. I’m going to call for an extra box now that Kai is around.”

Bonnie was sitting on the counter, with a clear view of the living area and the baby’s playpen. Liv was flitting through the kitchen, preparing the baby’s meal. 

“Not that I mind,” Liv continued. “He can have all the pizza. He’s great with them.”

“With the pizza?” Bonnie asked, her mind completely scattered.

_Kai._

_Kai is here._

Liv gave her a sceptical look. “With the twins? Duh. They just love him. It’s not really surprising when you think about it. He and Jo did spend more time with us than our parents did, what with running the coven. There’s this old lady that sits for the twins. She knew us from way back and she told me once that our mom would pop out a baby then hand it over to Jo and Kai right in the delivery room. Gross.”

Maybe that’s why he killed half of his siblings, Bonnie thought hysterically. He got tired of diaper duty. 

“What’s up with you?” 

“What?” Bonnie asked, coming out of her thoughts to see Liv looking at her crossly. 

“You’re all spaced out. You’re not doing drugs or anything, are you?”

Bonnie burst out into incredulous laughter. “What?”

“I’m not one to judge but you’re on baby duty right now so no chemicals. Not even the juju stuff.”

“Juju stuff? I’m guessing you have a stash then,” Bonnie said wryly, only half joking. Right now, anything to switch off her brain sounded great.

Especially as in the next moment, she felt the back of her neck burn. 

She knew. She knew without turning that he was right behind her.

“Everyone keeps a stash. Raid Jo’s before you go. She has the best stuff.”

His deep voice was mocking. Bonnie stared fixedly at the baby in front of her, and worked on her breathing. The heart that she had just got under control was beating rapidly again. 

“Want some pizza, Kai?” Liv asked.

“Don’t you ever eat proper food here?”

“Actually we had a whole home-cooked dinner last night. Too bad you weren’t invited,” Liv said sweetly as she walked around the island and into the living room, baby bottle and napkin in hand.

“Not if it was your cooking,” he drawled.

Liv just snorted, as she picked up the baby and, cooing, walked to the high chair in the far corner.

The silence between the two in the kitchen stretched out painfully. 

Bonnie fidgeted in her seat, feeling his gaze all but branding her neck. She sighed with relief, when she felt it lift. She heard him moving around the kitchen, then he was on the phone with the pizza place. His voice was low, barely audible but she felt every cadence on her skin.

She snuck a quick glance at her distorted reflection on the smooth shiny surface of one of the appliances on the counter. Loose strands had escaped from her once-neat bun. She smoothed her hair quickly, then frowned at her outfit. There was nothing she could do about her scruffy jeans and faded old T-shirt. 

A moment later, she almost groaned at her silliness. 

The call was ending soon. She clenched her fists tightly in her lap and took a deep breath. She turned to face him just as he was hanging up the phone.

Kai was already waiting for her, his grey eyes locking into her face at once.

He looked older, Bonnie thought, forcing herself to study him. A while ago when she saw him carrying his niece, his features had been relaxed, almost peaceful – well as peaceful as they could be in the circumstance. Now she could see that his face had grown stern, his jaw harder. There were lines at the corner of his eyes and mouth that were begging for someone’s fingers to reach over and smoothen them out. The strands of white hair that had sprung up that night, now stood in stark relief to his otherwise thick, dark hair. She couldn’t see the top of his head from where she sat, but she knew that the white streaked in a zig-zag pattern across his head. 

She looked away. That was enough. That was all that she could bear.

“It’s good to see you again, Bonnie,” he said softly.

She shivered at the sound of her name in his voice. She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “You, too.” 

Despite everything, that was the truth. 

“Of course, the circumstances could have been better,” he added, wryly.

She grabbed the opening with both hands. “Did Jo call you? Or did the” – despite herself, she made a face – “council give you their recommendation?”

“Yes, and yes. You really shouldn’t have lost your temper.”

She let out her breath in a sharp hiss. “Why does everybody keep saying that?” she growled.

Kai snorted. “Because it’s true.”

“But it’s up to you, right? You have the final say on this.”

His face was instantly grave again. He nodded. 

“So?” She pressed at once. “Are you going to help us?”

He walked towards her, and she leaned back, instinctively. He stopped, staring at her, and she felt the colour rise in her face.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

Kai shrugged, grabbed the stool across the counter from her and sat, his arms folded over each other, and resting on the table. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows and she could see the muscles rippling beneath veined skin, and the dark hairs coating it. His arms were bulkier than she remembered. She recalled how they looked upstairs, when he was easily walking with his niece against his chest. 

She had a clear view of his hands, the trademark black wristband and the rings on his fingers. Sometime in the past year, he had replaced the three that he had used up and acquired one more.

She hated that she could tell.

She caught her hands twitching. Blushing, she pulled them into her lap, locking her fingers together. 

He gave her an indecipherable look, then shifted his gaze, skidding past her face to rest somewhere just beside her left ear.

For a moment, neither of them said a word.  

He spoke first. “What’s going on in Mystic Falls?”

She looked from his hands to his face in surprise. “You just said-”

“Yes, I got a full report from the council. And Jo told me what she knew. I even spoke to Alaric and got the version he had from Damon Salvatore. I’ve read the newspapers and the police reports, too.”

Her eyebrows went up. “All in one day?” She was impressed, despite herself. 

Was she imagining it or did the tips of his ears go slightly pink?

But when he spoke, his voice was clinical. “The Gemini have been aware of the goings-on in your town for some time. What I want now is your version of events.” 

She swallowed, suddenly nervous. She felt like if she was back in that hall, facing the council. “OK.”

“When did the heretics first appear?”

“A month ago yesterday. They were first spotted near Fell’s Church. Their first few sightings, they wore odd clothes – I guess whatever get-up they had while they were in 1903. Damon and Stefan thought they were just a pair of old-time vampires coming out of hibernation. That was enough reason for them to worry.”

Damon’s first call had come towards the end of the Spring semester, a few days after Bonnie changed her term paper assignment at the last possible minute. She could still vividly remember walking triumphantly out of the professor’s office, then seeing the name  _Damon Salvatore_ flash on her screen and pressing the ignore button at once. The calls kept coming, as well as messages from him and his brother and she had kept ignoring them. 

A year ago, she had vowed to herself to stay away from the Salvatores, Mystic Falls and supernatural power plays in general; and she had been pleased with herself at how long she had kept that promise.

Now she’d always wonder: if she had picked that first call, maybe April Young and Ronnie Martin would still be alive. 

“It took a few kills to figure out what they were, what we were up against.They moved into an abandoned mansion somewhere on the upper-scale side of town, and barricaded it with wards. I’ve never been able to pinpoint its exact location. They come out once in a while to hunt and feed.” She grimaced. “You can be sure if you see one of them lurking around, dead bodies will soon crop up. And they’re hard to miss. They dress pretty normally now but a pair of white, creepy ginger-heads stand out anywhere.” He made a sudden movement. She bit her lip, then continued. “I-I recognized the man myself, from the battle and earlier from when I was attacked at your apartment. I don’t think I’ve ever met the woman before.”

That sudden movement – he had betrayed something. “D-do you recognize them?” she asked softly, hating herself even as she did so.

One of his hands clenched. “I guess you’re asking if I recognized any of my hosts from the scintillating time I spent enjoying their 1903 hospitality?” he asked and his voice was like ice. 

Bonnie closed her eyes, inhaled, and opened them. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Tell me about the first attack.”

He hadn’t answered her question and she didn’t have the nerve to ask it again.

“A pair of high school seniors. One of them was a mundane girl called April Young. I-I knew her, growing up. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She and her boyfriend Ronnie were walking home from a game. She was a cheerleader; and he played in the rival school’s team.”

Bonnie had been in the library, finishing up a term paper when the headline had flashed via a pop-up on her console. She didn’t even remember turning in that paper or the grade it got her. What she did remember was the nausea that had had hit her reading April’s obituary. Then again during the phone conversation with Matt later.

She had driven to Mystic Falls that evening.

“The town’s been relatively safe since the start of the year. This was the first supernatural incident and nobody expected it. Their bodies were found after searching for two days. They were drained of blood.”

“And you knew this was your heretics and not anyone from your friendly neighbourhood nest of vampires because … ?”

She ignored the barb. “Whoever drained these kids of blood, also drained them of their essence. They had siphoned their auras for magic. The bodies that were found were aged. It was clothes, then dental records that identified them.”

He nodded. “That’s their M.O. alright. Magic isn’t just in supernaturals like witches, or vampires or werewolves or banshees or any the other freaks. Everything alive has magic, including mundanes. That’s why we can channel them, if we have to. But it’s wrapped up in life and blood. So the heretics take everything when they feed. It’s not very efficient though. Better to feed from a vampire, or a werewolf. But the best thing, the real  _piece de resistance_ , is a full-bodied witch. Blood. Power. Magic. Like a triple layer burger. Take a bite from all three at once. Or you can peel the layers apart, pick and choose. Breakfast on blood. Power for lunchtime. A supper of magic. If you’re smart and not too greedy, you give your snack enough time between feedings to grow strong enough but not too strong. Just enough for that next juicy bite.”

His eyes were filled with a stark faraway look. 

“Kai,” she whispered, her heart pounding. Unconsciously, her hands had reached out towards him on the table. 

He didn’t hear her. “And you have to be careful because you have to break him, not too much or he won’t last long but enough so you don’t lose him. Sort of like a farm animal. You do it right and you can keep him alive for a long time. Feed a whole coven of heretics with just the one witch.”

Goosebumps were crawling over her flesh. She was almost choking with horror.

“Kai …   _Please_.”

He came to, with a start. Something passed over his face, too quickly for her to read. Then the shutters fell. 

“Did they keep going after mundanes?” he asked brusquely. 

But her emotions were still too raw. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding. Her eyes stung. She looked away and kept blinking furiously until they stopped. 

He had to ask the question again before she could even understand it. 

“Rarely,” she whispered, still staring down, forcing herself to stay on topic. “They have a clear preference for supernatural beings. After April, they took out two wizards, a couple of senior citizens that moved to town last year. Gabriel and Victor Briggs. A bunch of vampire co-eds living in a Whitmore dorm. Then there was a party at the Lockwood manor where they attacked. They killed two men and one woman with the werewolf gene. Two were relatives of Tyler Lockwood that just popped over the weekend for this shindig. One of the men was a fellow cadet from the Academy. Wrong place. Wrong time. Probably didn’t even know what he was. A week later, we lost one of our vampires when we tried to trap them. Next day, there was a massacre at a bank, all human casualties. That was the only time they attacked humans in Mystic Falls since April Young. It was around that time that we started fighting with vervain. It seems to have worked  …  for the moment.”

“We?”

“Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Matt, Tyler and I.” 

“Scooby Gang in action. Finding solutions to problems they create in three episodes or less.”

She glared at him for that and he glared right back. 

The lights in the room flickered.

“Hey, guys!”

Bonnie almost jumped out of her skin at Liv’s loud whisper. She turned to see the blonde girl, standing with the baby in her arms, and a look on her face that said she clearly wished she was anywhere but here.

“Baby’s sleeping. I’ll just …  go away for a while, OK?”

Bonnie nodded, tried to smile reassuringly at her but knew it probably came out as a wince. 

Liv paused at the door, then said over her shoulder. “Try not to kill each other in Jo’s kitchen. It’s baby-proof and vampire-proof, but not witchy woo murder-proof.”

Kai snorted. She smirked back and left. 

Liv’s words had done something to him. She could see the tension slipping off his shoulders as he pushed away from the counter and walked to the fridge.“I need a drink. Want one?”

She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see that. “No. Baby watch, remember?”

He snickered. “That never stopped Alaric. Or, for that matter, Jo.” But he only brought out one can. He took a swig from it, still standing by the fridge.

Bonnie watched the play of muscles under his shirt when he did, remembered how they felt under his skin. 

Her fingers spasmed again and she stared down at them in surprise. She hadn’t realized when she placed them on the table, but they were there now. Her arms were outstretched as if she had been trying to reach for something.

Or someone.

She pulled her hands back to her, clasped them together. Then she changed her mind, and wrapped them around her body. 

Kai took another swig before he came back to the counter. 

Sitting across from him now, both of them with drinks at hand, she was suddenly reminded of a year ago, meeting with him like this. She could almost still smell the coffee in that café. She had been so tense, ready to fight or fly, as she watched him warily, barely touching her glass of water. He, on the other hand, ate through his meal like if he didn’t have a care in the world, his face alternating between mirth and gravity with his characteristic and uncanny unpredictability. 

Despite what Damon had said, Bonnie hadn’t really believed that he would help them without demanding some hefty price in exchange. His ‘fee’ had caught her off-guard. 

_“Come on, it’ll be fun.”_

Staring at him now, she had a clear view of the sharp emotion that flashed across his face and she knew that he, too, was remembering that day. He shifted sideways on the stool so he was now staring out the window and his face was partially in profile to her.

She wondered if it was as disturbingly painful for him to look at her as it was for her to look at him. 

“Your heretic problem. I’m guessing you must have tried a few tricks before you came here cap in hand?” He asked now. 

Once again, Bonnie ignored the blatant attempt to get a rise from her. “We’ve tried everything. The usual stake and fire. Spells from any Grimoires we got hold of. Gilbert devices. And, of course, that’s only when we manage to get close enough to attack. But we keep fighting them with magic and that just makes them stronger. I triangulated their mansion once, and Tyler got the idea to booby-trap it with dynamite.” 

Kai looked impressed. “Obviously, it didn’t work.”

“We lost Enzo that night. A few days later, they attacked a bank downtown, and dropped his body with the rest of the corpses.” She felt cold just remembering. “It was a message. They didn’t feed from the humans. Just sealed them in the bank and torched it.” 

Did she imagine the sudden anger that crossed his face, so quickly that she only barely caught it?

She must have because he just asked curiously. “Enzo who?”

“One of our own. An old friend of Damon’s.”

“And an old friend of Damon’s mother.” He added. He noticed her surprise because he elaborated. “I remember him now. He was the vampire you said you lost?” he asked, concluding correctly.

Bonnie nodded.

He glanced at her quickly, then away. “What about you? Any up close and personal encounters? Anyone tried for that yummy Bennett essence?”

She shuddered. It was over a year, but she still had vivid memories of that second nightmare visit to 1903. “I’ve been lucky. We’ve all been lucky, and smart. We knew they were hard to kill. Just how hard, we didn’t realize at first. But we always knew enough to always attack as a group. Enzo …  fell behind.”

“So they’ve never tried to siphon  _you_?” 

She looked at him suspiciously. There was an undertone of persistence beneath the deceptive casualness of his question.

“No,” she answered, wondering what he was leading to. 

But he said nothing further, just kept staring away from her. 

After a moment of waiting, she shrugged and went on. “The only thing that works is vervain. It seems to have the same effect on them as it does with ordinary vampires – it weakens them. So we started putting it everywhere – in the water, planted it in parks, on lawns, layered branches over fences and walls. Matt had this brilliant idea of mixing the powder with house paint. That really helped.”

“Vervain drowns their vampire auras and they draw their magic from their vampirism.”

“Yes, that’s what we realised. They’ve stopped haunting the town. Now they go further upstate for prey. We’ve read the reports: it fits their profile. A few mundanes. Extremely aged in death. But more often, someone with a werewolf gene or someone who was clearly a vampire or probably some other supernatural human or creature, but clearly not a mundane. If we can keep this up for the next few months, maybe we can even drive them out of the town completely. I don’t know why they keep coming back. But eventually they have to go. I just don’t know how long it will take or who else will die before that happens.”

The can was half way up Kai’s mouth as she was speaking. Now he placed it back on the table without drinking. “Drive them,” he said slowly. “Where?”

Bonnie shifted uneasily. “Anywhere. Out of Virginia, we hope but I’d settle for outside the Greater Falls-Whitmore area.”

“And then what happens? They become someone else’s problem? Another town, this one without a Founders’s Council? As incompetent as yours is, at least you have a system for handling rogue supernatural elements. What do you think will happen when the heretics go somewhere they can have a free for all?”

She was acutely aware that it wasn’t a fully thought out plan but – considering everything – his question rankled, and she threw it back at him. “Maybe by that time, you Gemini might actually get off your asses and do something about it?” 

He turned then, looked her full in the face. His expression was incredulous. “You seem to think this is our problem.”

“Isn’t it  _yours_?” 

His lips thinned. “Is that your angle then?”

There was a challenge in his gaze. And for a moment, she glared back at him, ready to get into it with him there and then.  

Then the moment passed, and she backed down. She wasn’t going down that road with him. 

Not again. 

“What I meant was,” she asked, willing herself to speak calmly, “aren’t you Gemini supposed to be some sort of,” she struggled to remember Damon’s words, “‘supernatural police’? When the travellers were in Mystic Falls, it was the Gemini’s problem, wasn’t it? Your coven locked up the heretics before. Can’t you do it again?”

“When the Ascendants were destroyed,” he reminded her, “the empty Prison Worlds were destroyed as well.”

“Surely, there are other Prison Worlds in existence.”

“There’s a reason why their existence is shrouded in secrecy, even from one Praetor to the next. Maybe you didn’t get the memo, but I for one learnt my lesson the hard way about locking people up in prison worlds they don’t belong to.”

If his words were meant to make her flinch, then he succeeded. His eyes seemed to burn into her face, watching her every cringe. But her guilt was also spiked with fury. 

How dare he put this all on her?  

“Fine,” she snarled. “Make a new one then.”

“Yes, please add that to your online Gemini shopping cart,” he said, his voice soft and furious. “Item: Alternate dimension. Quantity: one. Size: the Earth. We don’t make them  _en masse_ , Bonnie. And considering the jailbreak rate in the past century is currently at one hundred per cent, the Council believes they are a waste of time and magical energy. I agree.”

His sarcasm made her burn. She gripped her glass fiercely and barely restrained herself from hurling its contents in his face. 

Barely restrained  _herself_  from hurling at him and scratching his eyes out. 

She must have shown some of her anger in her face because his gaze turned wary. “Have you tried other means of solving your problem?” he asked, a tad more courteously. 

“I just told you-” 

“I mean non-violent means. Talking to them, reaching some sort of understanding? Striking a deal?”

Bonnie stared. “You are joking, right? They murdered two kids the first day they showed up in town.”

He boggled his eyes mockingly. “And this is a problem for …  whom exactly? Last time I checked, none of your Scooby Gang had their hands clean. Do you really want to play the ‘who has the longest rap sheet’ game with your track record?”

“I’ve never killed an  _innocent_ ,” she said sharply. “Everyone I’ve gone after deserved it,” she added, meaningfully. “ _Everyone_.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. 

“You’re right, Bonnie. You’re perfect. Not a black mark in your book. You only just enable the murderers in your inner circle.”

“How dare-”

His voice rose. “ _Oh Caroline, you ate half the freshman class when you turned off your humanity switch. But that’s OK, you lost your mom_.” His mimicry of her inflection was irritatingly uncanny.

Her face burned.

“ _Oh Damon, you murdered your unborn niece and both her parents. But that’s OK, nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like blueberry fucking pancakes_.”

“Shut up!” She screamed. 

He did. Took a gulp of beer and banged the can on the table loudly.

Her eyes were stinging again and she blinked rapidly. “Who are you to sit in judgement over anybody?” she hissed. 

“The leader of the Gemini coven. You came to me, remember?”

“I did. So tell me how to kill these monsters and we never have to speak to each other again.”

The sound of metal crumpling drew her eyes to his hand. He had squashed the can in his fist. The muscle in his jaw was ticking so rapidly now it was practically telling time.

Overhead, the lights were flickering again. 

He stood abruptly, walked quickly to the window.

It probably took a full minute but the lights finally stopped blinking. 

“It doesn’t matter if you know the spell,” he said at last, so low, she almost missed it. 

She nearly screamed in frustration. “Just tell me.”

“It won’t make any difference, Bonnie! You can’t kill them even if you knew how. You aren’t built for it.”

She laughed, short and bitter. “You’ll be surprised at what I can handle.”

“I’ve seen what you can handle, remember?” he said lowly.

Bonnie inhaled sharply. It was a simple enough question but it sent her reeling. She stared at his back with her heart thudding. 

“Or have you forgotten the cost?”

Maybe she had. There were a lot of things she had forced herself to forget – and for good reasons.  

Although there were other things she simply couldn’t remember because  _she hadn’t been there._

Not for the first time, the old anger rose up in her: 

He had no right taking her out of that fight.

She jumped off from her seat and walked over to Kai in sharp, angry steps. He turned as she came close, and stared warily at her hands which were balled into fists at her sides.

“You’re taking it out on them, aren’t you?” She whispered, fiercely. The thought formed almost as she asked it. 

“What are you saying, Bonnie?” he asked, and there was a warning in his voice.

_Don’t go there. Don’t you dare._

She dared. “Not helping my town. Letting them rot at the hands of these heretics. You knew for a month and you did nothing. So much for you  _changing_. So much for us being even,” she scoffed. “You’re punishing me. This is you teaching me a lesson, isn’t it?”

He scoffed, shook his head, tried to turn away. “This is me having a better understanding than you what is at stake since you clearly have an inflated opinion of y-”

She rushed around him, put herself between him and the window. “Isn’t it, Kai?” she all but yelled, getting as close to him as possible. 

He glared down at her. Then he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the window in a sudden movement that left her breathless. 

“You listen to me, Bonnie Bennett.” His face was so near that his breath washed over hers. She could taste the alcohol in it. “I am the Praetor Magus of the Gemini and that means I literally hold the life of every single warlock, witch and witchling of my coven in my hands. Whatever I decide to do is going to be in the best interest of my people. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Absent-mindedly, she noticed that the lights were flickering again.

Her heart was pounding again, and her lungs were not working properly, she felt breathless, almost dizzy. But she lifted her chin and looked at him squarely. Her mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile. “Yeah. Right.”

His rings dug into her skin as his grip tightened, painfully and he stepped closer. She could practically feel his words on her face. “I don’t put my personal interests before the interests of my coven anymore, Bonnie. I learnt that lesson the hard way.”

_I’ll go if you go._

They were breathing heavily now, their eyes boring into each other. His gaze dropped lower, to her mouth. Instinctively, she licked her lips and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple jumping in his throat. Her own gaze went to the crow’s feet she had noticed before and she felt her hand start rising up to smoothen them. 

Bonnie yanked herself out of his grip. 

Kai’s arms stayed in position for a few moments, his hands clutching the empty air, then he lowered them slowly.

He turned to face her and they stared at each other, both still breathing heavily. 

“So you’re not going to help us?” she asked finally, and even in her own ears, it sounded more like a plea than a dare.

Shutters fell over his face.

“What do you think, Bonnie?”

She nodded softly, more to herself than him. Then she turned her face away because she couldn’t bear to look at him. Then turned back because she couldn’t bear not to. 

His eyes were stormy, his face riddled with more emotions than she wanted to understand. 

There were about a hundred things she wanted to say to him.

She walked around him and out of the room.  

It took almost half an hour before the lights stopped flickering.

* * *

**April 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

She was swimming in an ocean of magic, silver eddies floating over her head as she felt more than she heard the echo of spells. A familiar face, pale-skinned, and dark-haired seemed to peer through the shadows at her – and she felt her heart swell with fear, then she was sinking further into the depths. 

She came to slowly, her mind breaking out of her swirling dreams like a diver resurfacing. Her eyes blinked slowly up at the familiar ceiling above, then she turned her head carefully to take in the yellow window curtains, the matching furniture, and her winter wear on the floor.

The Salvatore’s boarding house. She was lying on her bed, in what had been her room during her stay in 1994. 

Was she back there? She sat up at once, and felt dizzy. Her heart was already jumping, panicking, when she heard voices from the door.

She turned to see his tall figure, half-blocking the doorway. From around his broad shoulders, she could make out a familiar female figure – dark hair, white jacket.

Dr. Jo Laughlin.

Josette Parker.

“-needs rest.Magic and medicine can only do so much. And come to the hospital. You need a transfusion, Kai.”

“If I can stand and walk … ”

“You’re going to drop to the floor the moment I close this door.”

“I forgot how good you are at this, Jo. The concerned doctor slash sister act. Impressive. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually gave a damn about me.”

“Kai-”

“I’d give you a hefty tip but I think my wallet’s somewhere in the turn of the last century. Thanks so much for coming. Bye!”

She was still talking when he slammed the door in her face. 

He paused a moment, then he fell to the floor like a ninepin.

Tentatively, Bonnie reached for her magic and felt it, weak and rattled underneath her skin. And, she realized with a mix of relief and regret, it was just her own. She had used up the last of her Expression magic.

Pushing back that thought for another time, she scanned the room for a weapon, or anything that could improvise for one.

“You know, I can practically hear you thinking of a way to attack me?” She started at Kai’s voice. 

He was still sitting on the floor in front of her, leaning on her footboard, but he had turned his head to stare up at her. 

“You have to make up your mind what you want to do with me: slay me or save me? Because if it’s the former, you botched your plan. Unless,” he made a face, “you brought me back to finish the job yourself. Is this a case of ‘no one can kill me but you’ because that’s kinda hot.”

He looked marginally better than he had a few minutes – or hours? or days? She had no idea how much time had passed between leaving the prison world and now – ago. The puncture wounds on his neck had closed, and the paper-white complexion had filled with a  _bit_  of colour. He was still pale though, she thought. Dr. Laughlin was right. He needed blood.

Wincing, he pulled himself to his knees, then dragged himself to sit on the foot of her bed. She skidded all the way to the headboard, clutching the blanket with one hand and her magic with the other. 

He noticed. 

“I’m really flattered but right now, I can’t endanger a mouse,” he said bitterly, and grimaced. 

Bonnie hoped he was in considerable pain. 

“How long have we been back? Where is Damon? Elena?” she fired him with questions.

“A few hours. Good question. Where are they, Bonnie? I distinctly remember you threatening me with the fact that your vamp pals were waiting for you on this side, ready to rip out my throat if I pulled a Crocodile Bondee on you.” He snickered darkly. “Get it?”

She glared at him stonily, determined not to even blink at being caught in her bluff, or to let her disappointment show.

Because of some convoluted reasons involving Elena and the Cure, Damon had wanted Bonnie to bring back Lily’s ‘family’ as well – a task that Bonnie had been against long before she understood just what that ‘family’ was. She had kept him out of her plans, leaving only a message at the very last minute before she went into the 1994 Prison, asking that he come to the Salvatore House to wait out her return. She had been hoping that despite their disagreement, he’d have her back.

Clearly, she had underestimated how disappointed, furious even, Damon had been over Bonnie refusing to help Lily.

Kai’s glare had narrowed, turned shrewd and she broke, and looked away.

To her surprise, he didn’t crow. “Whatever,” he said brusquely. “This place was empty when we got back. I barely managed to lug you up here and call Jo. Turns out that apart from her mad medical skills, the good doctor also carries along a vial of vamp blood for emergencies. That’s why you’re not swimming in your own blood, by the way.”

Bonnie touched her side, the memory of canines tearing into her body flashed through her brain. She lifted her blouse and touched the skin. It was unblemished. There was no sign of her ordeal. Even the blood that must have dried there had been cleaned away.  

She glanced at him then and caught his eyes fixed on the patch of skin she had revealed, his mouth gaping slight, his face twisted into an expression she could only describe as yearning.

He saw her staring at him, and looked away, the tips of his ears reddening.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered.

“For what?” She snapped. “Asking Jo to fix me after I got bitten and siphoned saving your life? If anyone should be groveling with thanks, it’s you.”

His eyes snapped back at her, and she recoiled at the sudden fury in them. “I’d prostrate myself on the floor and crawl on my belly right now but I’m a little weak from being used as a blood bag for six weeks. If only I could remember how that happened.” He scrunched his brow in pretend-confusion and then gasped dramatically, his eyes mockingly wide. “Oh wait, I remember! I was stuck in a prison world because you stabbed me and left me there to die!” He snarled the last sentence.

“Now doesn’t that sound familiar?” It was Bonnie’s turn to be sarcastic. “Because I remember you doing the  _exact same thing_  to me.”

“So you wanted to punish me? Bit out of proportion, don’t you think? I left you by yourself. You left me to be food to a bunch of monsters. It’s not my fault that you broke after five months and tried to kill yourself. I was in that prison for  _eighteen years_ , Bonnie! You planned on doing the same thing to me. The only difference was I got out first. So stop acting like you’re some kind of innocent victim!”

Bonnie lifted a hand and threw her magic at him. He caught it, threw it at the window and the glass shattered beneath it. 

Then before she could summon another hex, he had leaned over and grabbed her wrists, holding them painfully in its grip.

“Let go of me!” she shouted.

“Use your magic against me, Bonster and I’ll bleed it out of you.”

She sneered. “So I’m the monster, Kai? Can you hear yourself? I did bleed for you today. I almost died getting you back!”

“Why? Because you felt guilty? Because you cared so much? Puh-leeze. You did it for Jo and the coven or I’d still be there, being passed around like a bowl of soup.”

“You deserve worse! At least, I came back for you. Which was more than you ever did for me.”

He laughed in her face, his eyes completely mad. “Semantics. I almost died trying to bring you back after stranding you there. You nearly died trying to bring me back after leaving me there. We’re even, Bonster,” and he said it like a threat. “All debts settled. All bets off.”

“Even? I never owed you anything!” she snarled, struggling against his grip. “What the hell did you ever do for me but hurt me, and trick me, and abandon me?”

“Your birthday, Bonnie,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What about my birthday?”

“Myself. Almost dying. Saving your life!”

She stopped struggling then to look at him, at the look of fury and hurt on his face. “What. the. hell. are you talking about, Kai?”

Impossibly, his face seemed to get angrier. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought he would siphon her. Then he froze, the anger melting away into confusion. Then shock. Then dawning realization. 

He sat back, and her hands slipped out of his.

She pulled them to her chest at once, twisting them into the blanket that she wrapped protectively around her body. 

“You …  don’t know?” he asked, slowly.

“Know what?” she said, trying to bite out the words but they only came out as confused as his did. 

“Your birthday. When you tried to kill yourself. Didn’t Damon or Elena or Jeremy Gilbert tell you what happened? What I … ” he swallowed. “Didn’t anyone tell you what I did?” he asked, very quietly.

“What did you do?”

He stared. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“The spell. Jeremy Gilbert and I came to you. I tried sending everybody but it was too much. With him alone, we could just barely interact physically with your world. But boy, did that take major juice out of me. Then,” he suddenly snorted, “to make things even more interesting, my baby sister ran a poker through me. There I am, bleeding all over Damon’s kitchen, wondering how I survived the merge ceremony to be gutted by Livvie poo of all people. But I keep at the spell because you, Bonnie Bennett are five seconds away from carbon monoxide poisoning. Which is not a bad way to go, all things considered. I should know. I’ve tried them all.” His smile was broken.

Something cold was filling Bonnie, her lungs, her pores. She felt like if she had been sleeping, and someone had grabbed her, thrown her into the deep end of the pool and now she was drowning. 

“Jeremy Gilbert got to you in time to open the garage door.”

She dragged herself out of the bed, almost stumbling onto the floor. He half-stood, trying to reach for her but she dodged his reach, limping backwards and away from him, needing to put as much distance between both of them as possible.

He was lying. He had to be lying. 

She swallowed past the lump that was forming in her throat and told him that. “Stop lying.” 

“The map opened to Nova Scotia on the kitchen floor? Right where you needed it to be to get the idea to go for your ancestor’s magic? How do you think that happened?”

“I thought – the wind …  somehow … ”

“The garage door that opened just in time to save your life? Did the wind do that too? That must have been some genius wind.”

_How had that garage door opened?_

Bonnie had asked herself that question once, not too long ago; but this was not the answer she had expected. Or wanted.

“You’re lying.”

He shook his head, laughed bitterly. “Why would I lie? How  _can_  I lie about this?”

“To manipulate me. To get into my head.”

“Ask Damon or Elena what happened that day. Ask Jeremy Gilbert, your boyfriend.” 

His voice snagged on the last word but Bonnie barely noticed. Too many thoughts were going through her head. 

Damon had written the notes to Nova Scotia on the map. She had thanked him for them. He hadn’t mentioned Kai. Or Jeremy. Between Caroline’s and Stefan’s humanity crisis and getting Lily out, she and Elena hadn’t even talked about her time in the prison world. 

And as for Jeremy – Bonnie hadn’t had a proper conversation with Jeremy since she got back. They kept missing each other on the phone. Or in all fairness,  _she_  kept missing him, deliberately. What could she say to him? She didn’t know who she was anymore, had stopped knowing for many months now. She needed to figure herself out before she could figure out who she was or could be to anyone else.

Kai was still talking. “It was your birthday. They were throwing a party.” He laughed at that. 

She hadn’t known that. Why hadn’t she been told that?

“I needed to send a note to Jo. I asked Elena. She asked for a favour. Damon wanted me to send a message to you. A trade. It was your birthday, he said, and he didn’t even know if you knew.”

“I did,” Bonnie whispered, hoarsely, the memory of the pain of that returning. 

A pressure in her head was building, threatening to burst out of her. She hurt. In her head. In her bones. Everything hurt. 

“I was – I was counting days. I knew.”

He swallowed hard before he continued again. She could see his Adam’s apple bob violently.  

“The Ascendant was too broken to use properly. But I tried to fix it to send them back.”

“It was broken because you destroyed it!” She retorted, clutching at what was familiar. “Damon told me you destroyed it so that no one could ever use it again. You wanted me stuck there forever.”

“I destroyed the Ascendant so that it couldn’t be used to imprison me again.”

“But you also wanted  _me_  trapped there, didn’t you, Kai?”

A familiar expression passed over his face.A mixture of anger and hunger. It was the same way he had sometimes looked at her in the prison world. She remembered that day when she had dared him, and he had almost drained her of magic, only letting her go at the last possible moment. He had stared down at her like that then. 

That had been the first time but it hadn’t been the last. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” She asked him now, her voice shaking. “You wanted to pay me back but you also wanted to keep me there like some kind of caged pet.”

His fists clenched, unclenched on his knees, but he didn’t look away. “I’ve changed, Bonnie. I’m not the same person who-”

“I don’t care!” She cried. Everything  _hurt_. She was stretched thin and a hair’s breath from breaking into pieces. “It doesn’t matter! None of it does. There’s nothing you can ever do to make me forgive you.”

Pain flashed across his face. Then he was on his feet and striding to her, backing her right against the wall. 

Her magic hovered at her fingertips. You only got one chance with Kai Parker and she was ready to do considerable damage with hers.

But his only attack was with words.

“Fine.” His voice was deep and dark like the ocean during a storm. “You and I, Bonnie? We’re even now.” 

It sounded like a warning.

Then he was gone. 

Bonnie sank to the floor, bent her head over her knees and sobbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Etymology of Praetor: I wanted a Latin-esque title for the Gemini Coven leader, and I settled on Praetor Magus after a lot of etymology research. According to Cicero on the ideal ancient Rome constitution, the Praetors had the authority of the King, replacing his function as the Republic was established. Praeeo means: "to go before, to precede, to lead the way"). The Praetors served first as generals, then judges, then governors. Which I felt was appropriate for the leader of a magical coven that would have to rule during times of peace, war and manage politics in and without the coven. Later on, the laws and systems changed so the Praetor served under the Consul (the supreme magistrate) and the Senators. Which I felt was even more appropriate for the Gemini. While the coven Leader is the ranking officer, so to speak, the Council (Senators) have considerable power and influence and can in certain circumstances act as a check against him. The Consul also seemed like a good title for the ex-leader, in this case, Joshua but more of that in subsequent chapters. 
> 
> (And all this is just my roundabout way of saying that the Praetor in this story doesn't have anything to do with the werewolf society in Shadowhunters. Although it's possible that I settled on the name by subconscious association.)


	4. bend to her will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the past, the Scooby gang have a vote. in the present, Bonnie gets a proposal...

# 

* * *

**May 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

“Why did you come back?”

At first the question didn’t register in Bonnie’s head. 

She and Matt were in the ‘War Room’ – the nickname they all gave the guestroom-turned-armoury in the Salvatore boarding house. Crossbows, Molotov cocktails, magical weapons of all variety were lined up and stacked, filling practically every inch of space except for the table in the middle of the room, where there was just room enough for six people to stand around. The table itself was usually used to hold maps or scrolls or the occasional spell book and candles for what Damon called ‘witchy juju stuff’.

Some witchy juju stuff was in progress now. Seven candles arranged as the points of a heptagram around the complicated box of machinery placed in their centre. It was one of many Gilbert devices that Jeremy had sent over. Unable to come in person because he and his group of hunters were currently wading through a nest of vampires in Brooklyn, he had sent what help he could. 

The device was a slightly different version of the same one that Bonnie had pretended to de-spell so many years ago. Now, she was tampering with Emily Bennett’s magic for real – modifying the embedded hexes so that when they were set off on the heretics, they would harm only the intended targets, and not her own vampire friends. Bonnie had just put the finishing touches to her magic, and extinguished the candles when Matt asked his question.

He was whittling a stake at the small lathe machine. He, Bonnie and Enzo who was loitering somewhere in the cellar, were the only ones in the house. The other four had gone on reconnaissance.

She repeated Matt’s question, trying to understand it. 

“Why did I come back …  to Mystic Falls?” 

Matt shook his head. “Mystic Falls, yeah. But this whole  … ” He tilted his head to gesture at the whole room. “I sort of got the impression that this was behind you.”

_You and me both_ , she thought ruefully but all she said was: “Did I ever say that I was never coming back?”  

He gave her a  _look_ , his blue eyes skeptical. “Bonnie, during Thanksgiving weekend, those nomad werewolves tried to eat what was left of your campus, and you packed your bags and went to your Mom’s.”

“Because it was  _Thanksgiving_?”

“Last Christmas, Demon Santa came to Mystic Falls and you spent your entire Winter break with your cousin Lucy.”

“Give me Silicon Valley, California over snowy Virginia any day. Lucy is a blast. She taught me all sorts of cool magic and hacking stuff. Plus we went to Disney World.”

“Bonnie … ”

“But yeah, look at me choosing to spend time with the only family I have left. How incredibly selfish.”

“I’m the last person …  I would  _never_ _…_ ” He groaned, and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. That made the stake wobble, and he quickly turned off the machine, then turned to face her fully. “Look, that’s not what I’m saying at all. When Ty and I would come over to your place and talk shop, you were OK when the topic was mundane crime, but the moment it switched to supernatural stuff, you made some excuse to take off. I didn’t even dare bring it up on the phone when I called. You didn’t want us telling you about this stuff.” 

“Maybe because there was no need to? I mean, not to sound completely desensitized, but none of those cases ever ranked up the body count of the Originals, or Silas, or heck even Stefan and Caroline when they turned off their humanity switches. I was sure you guys could handle things, and – guess what? – you did.”

He folded his arms. “Fine, then. So what’s changed now?”

“It’s Summer and I couldn’t get an internship anywhere. You guys don’t pay much, or at all, but still … I figured you could use my help.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Come off it, Bon. You can do that misdirection thing with everyone else but this is me, OK? Matt. We’ve known each other forever.”

Her smiled wavered slightly. She looked away. “There’s no big, dark secret reason why I’m here. What you see is what you get. I couldn’t help before and now I can. That’s it, Matt.”

“No, that’s not  _it_. Sure, you never actually said you weren’t coming back to Mystic Falls …  but I helped you move your stuff to your new apartment and I knew you took everything you didn’t want to come back for. Then remember just after you got back from Europe? That time some old friends of Damon rolled into town, looking for trouble? I tried to tell you about it and you just shut down the whole conversation. Acted like you had no idea what was going on. Like it wasn’t any concern of yours.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I know. You kinda  …  made it clear, without actually  _saying_  anything that you didn’t want to get involved anymore and I respected that. Tyler didn’t understand. Damon and Stefan were pissed … ”

Bonnie snorted.

“But everybody got used to not having you around anymore for the fights. And then suddenly, you show up for this.”

“Are you complaining, Matt?” Bonnie asked, exasperation creeping into her voice. “If you think you don’t need or want my help-?”

“Good heavens no!” He all but shouted. He walked over to her, and placed the stake on the table, then put a hand on her arm. “Are you kidding? We’d have all been dead the first time we went up against them. Well, except me, maybe.” They both glanced at his hand and the familiar ring on his finger, then he turned his blue eyes back to her. “We  _need_  you, Bonnie. I just …  I guess I’m just worried about you, OK? You made some kind of resolution or something when you got back from Europe and now you seem to be backtracking and all I want is to be sure you’re in this for the right reasons. That Damon or Stefan isn’t pressuring you and Caroline isn’t guilt-tripping you … ”

Warmth filled Bonnie’s chest. “No one’s making me do anything I don’t want to do, Matt,” she said gently. “I’m doing this for me, for my own reasons.”

“Is it because of April?” he pressed, but his voice was softer now, his hand warm on her arm. 

Bonnie said nothing.

“I cared about her, too. We all did. She was a good kid, and what happened to her and the Grove Hill kid was sad but Bonnie …  it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that,” she said half-truthfully. “And I’m not here because of her. At least, not  _only_ because of her.”

He squeezed her arm slightly. “So what is it? Come on, Bonnie. You can tell me.”

His concern was touching – but it was also beginning to feel invasive and she tried to edge back, but his hand on her was firm. “I …  Matt, I have my reasons. OK? Just  …  just take me at my word that no one is making me do anything.” She sighed loudly. “And that’s all I’m ready to tell you.”

“Sure, of course.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, lamely.

He grinned quickly, covering the clear disappointment on his face. “Don’t be. Just wanted to be sure that you’re OK.”

“I am,” she said quickly. Then they looked around – at the weapons, the stake, the candles and the device – and they laughed. “Well, relatively speaking … ”

“So touching.”

Matt stepped back, his hand falling from her arm to the table, as they both turned to face the spiky-haired vampire who was loitering in the doorway.

“Bugger me, did I interrupt you lovebirds?”

Bonnie snorted as she turned back to the table, and started gathering the candles. “What’s up, Enzo?”

“Nothing much. Just drank some blood bags downstairs but I still have a thirst for vein. Anyone care to help a mate out?”

Matt spun around, stake in hand but Bonnie was faster – her hand was out, her spell loud – and the vampire flew up into the roof, and came crashing down on the floor.

“Ow! Can’t you muckers take a joke?”

“A joke?” Matt growled, still holding out his stake. “I still remember when you used to torment my life on a daily basis.”

Enzo got to his feet, and gave both of them an exaggeratedly hurt look. “OK, Donovan, I haven’t even  _looked_  at you funny in yonks. Quit whinging already. As for you, Witchy, I’ll give you a pass because you’ve been out of circulation. But we’re all mates now. While you were busy playing at being Little Miss Perfect College Student, I was saving your friends’ lives over and over last year.”

“You mean after putting us in danger first?” Matt retorted. “And don’t pretend you didn’t do half of that to impress Caroline. You don’t give a damn about anybody else.”

“Sorry that I hurt your feelings, mate,” Enzo mocked, putting his hand on his chest and everything. “What do you think, Witchy? Is this a good time to tell Detective Gadget here that I think he’s really fit but he’s not my type?”

It took a while for him to grasp the meaning of Enzo’s words but the evil leer on the vampire’s face finally clued him in. Then Matt’s face turned into such a picture of mingled horror and disgust that Bonnie couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.

“Bonnie!” Matt cried, pained.

“I-I’m sorry, Matt,” she said, trying and failing to stop.

He rolled his eyes, and moved sulkily back to the whittling machine. 

“Don’t give up so soon, it’s a bloke’s prerogative to change his mind-” Enzo started over the roar of the machine but Bonnie shushed him. She had felt the wards of the building change – and in a moment, the other two felt it – the magical alarm of sorts that Bonnie had set up to protect their houses. 

The others had returned. Matt turned off the machine just as Caroline, Damon, Stefan and Tyler poured into the War Room.

Bonnie gasped at the sight of them. They all looked worse for wear. Being vampires and werewolf, their wounds had healed, but there was still blood on their ripped clothes. Caroline’s blonde hair was streaked with red. Damon was limping, leaning on his brother. He spoke with a hoarse voice. 

“Pieces of stake in my leg. Wicked evil spell. Bonbon, can you-”

She was already on it, guiding Stefan to position Damon so that he could lift the leg onto the table. His pants were torn from knee down. Even though his skin had closed, she could tell where the pieces of wood were from the lines of dessication that had formed where veins should have been. It was an easy enough spell to pull the wooden splinters, but she had to be careful not to split them further as they tore through vampire flesh and bone in their exit. It also didn’t help that Damon yelped and jerked with every passage.

When it was done, Enzo was already at his friend’s side with a blood bag.

“Thank you so much,” Damon said earnestly to Enzo. 

Bonnie gaped at him.

Damon gave her a wink. “Put that on my IOU tab.”

She shoved at him, and he laughed. “You’re too easy, BonBon.”

“And you’re a lousy spy. You all are,” she added, turning to include Stefan, Caroline and Tyler in her reproach. “You were supposed to have been  _silently_ observing and gathering intel,  _not_  engaging.”

“I wanted to leave when he spotted us,” Tyler muttered. “But Carebear went ‘come on guys, we can take him’.” His voice went high-pitched.

“Shut up, Tyler,” Caroline retorted but there was no sting in it. She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Bon. It was my fault. I thought since there was only one … ”

Bonnie sighed. “You didn’t mean any harm, Caroline. But we have to stop forgetting that these guys aren’t …   _hybrids._  They’re witches, vampires  _and_  syphons. They were raised in the Gemini coven and they have skills in spells that I haven’t  _heard_  about. Their vampire nature gives them an endless supply of magic. Their syphon nature feeds from  _everything_  that has magic. All three combined has given them some form of immortality that we haven’t figured out a loophole to.  _Everyone_  in this room is vulnerable to them.”

“Triple threat,” Damon piped. “Top of the supernatural food chain. Got it.”

“We can’t tackle them like a football team. We can’t  _ever_  win against them without a planned method of attack.”  

“Good talk, Bonnie,” Stefan said quietly. “Just one little thing …  we don’t have a plan, do we?”

She bristled. “I’m working on the Gilbert devices that Jeremy sent. Once I can re-spell them so they can’t be used against  _you_ , we can come up with some strategy to use them on the heretics.”

“How long will that take?”

“As long as it takes, Stefan. You know, I could probably work faster if I didn’t have to add your blood to the antiserum that I use on the devices? What do you say to that? It’s for a good cause, right?”

He returned her furious look with a cool glare of his own. 

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Oh-Kay … ” Damon declared, clearing his throat noisily. “I move the motion that this was a successful day since no one actually died.” He pumped his arms in the air and hooted. Ignoring the baleful stares he received, he continued, “I propose that we all go downstairs and get thoroughly wasted on some excellent bourbon that I have been keeping for just this occasion.”

“What occasion, Damon?” Tyler murmured. “Celebrating your continued existence?”

“Rats! I forgot.  _You’re_  still here. So no, this has not been a successful day! I propose we all go downstairs and get thoroughly wasted  _mourning_  the continued existence of Tyler Lockwood.”

Matt and Enzo snickered at that – which made Tyler look at his friend in outrage and made Matt in turn look horror-stricken at the realisation that he had been in agreement in any capacity with Enzo. 

Bonnie was hiding her smile behind her hand when Stefan spoke again.

“I have a better proposal: We petition the Gemini Coven for help.”

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Bonnie paused at the kitchen doorway and peeped in.

Liv was sitting at the counter; a can, a laptop and a box of pizza were open in front of her. She sat on the kitchen side of the counter so that she was looking into the living area. Rachel was playing a game with herself that involved rolling, sitting and rolling again. 

“Kai’s gone. You can come in.” Liv’s voice was extremely wry.

Bonnie pretended not to notice as she stepped inside, and poured herself a glass of water. 

She said after a gulp, “I got a text from Damon. Apparently he got caught up downtown.”

Liv rolled her eyes. “Caught up between someone’s legs?”

Bonnie started chuckling, then she checked herself, remembering. “What he said about Luke earlier.” Liv froze but Bonnie pushed on, feeling horrible. “It was out of line. I …  I’m sorry.” She felt angry even as she said the words, apologising for Damon’s insensitivity – and probably making herself a target for Liv’s anger. 

But damn it, Bonnie couldn’t  _not_  say something.

Liv looked up – and Bonnie braced herself for the other girl’s acerbic wit.

But Liv just shrugged, completely calm. “Oh please, spare me the Elena Gilbert Kid Gloves treatment. Have you texted Damon back?”

Bonnie half-laughed, relieved enough to let the dig on her friend slide. “I texted back that he was a liar, some more censorable words, and finally that he owed us both. Full disclosure though: Damon’s not good for much except maybe if you need someone’s head ripped off … ?”

Liv snorted. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Bonnie checked the box of pizza and put two slices on a plate. “I thought there were two boxes?”

“Have you met my brother?” Liv said, glibly, then winced.

Bonnie tried to crack a smile, but her face wasn’t quite working. She concentrated on the microwave, considering very carefully all her reheating options before popping in her plate.

All the while she could feel Liv’s eyes boring through her back.

“So, you and Kai…”

Bonnie’s shoulders stiffened.

“Is there something…”

Rachel wailed. The both dashed to the parlour. It wasn’t anything serious, to their relief. The baby’s rattle had rolled out her reach. Liv fished it out for her and Rachel thanked them with a beaming, toothless grin. Liv’s eyes softened despite herself and Bonnie stroked the bald little head, grateful to the little girl in more ways than one. 

The microwave beeped and she dashed back to the kitchen. She yanked its door open and grabbed a bite of the pizza, steaming hot and all. She walked around Liv’s PC to sit on a counter stool and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be blueprints.

“What are you working on?” she asked, genuinely curious but also to keep the conversation away from its earlier topic.

“Some stuff from work.” At Bonnie’s raised eyebrow, Liv continued, “Believe it or not being a professional Gemini witch doesn’t pay much. I freelance for this Architecture firm downtown. I’d probably get paid better if I did a proper 9 to 5 job but this way I get to pick and choose only the stuff I find interesting. And the money’s not too bad. I can afford a place of my own, in case you’ve been wondering. I’m not just freeloading on Jo. I have a room here and everything because it’s the easiest way to help out with the twins.”

“I never thought that,” Bonnie said, honestly. “If I had a big sister with kids, I’d probably move in and help too.” She felt a little sad thinking about that. Most of her life, that had been her one wish. And of course, that would be a wish that no spell could grant. 

If she had other siblings, her life would have been so different that she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like now.

Liv laughed. “Trust me, you won’t say that if you really had a big sister with kids.” She looked across at Rachel with a rueful smile. “The little brats aren’t half bad but it would be nice to deal with them only once a week. Heck, I’d probably still show up every day. I love them. I’d just like some me-time, you know? I haven’t gone on a date in months.”

“Oh.”

“Mmm… hmmm… I was sort-of seeing someone in the office but you know how guys are. You aren’t there 24/7 and they move on. Although, Tom started getting boring in the end. So maybe that worked out for the best.”

That explained her disposition, Bonnie thought wryly as she chewed her pizza, but kept that little observation to herself. She was rather surprised that Liv was opening up this much to her.

“I’d kill for a weekend abroad,” Liv continued. “I could afford to go on my own with all I’ve saved living here. Not Europe though. That’s for Trust Fund babies from Virginia.”

Bonnie raised an eyebrow at the last, and the snide glance that accompanied it. “Let me know when and we’ll start a charity in your name anytime,” she snarked. “We’ll call it the Olivia Parker Tourism Fund.”

Liv snorted. “Don’t think I won’t hold you to it. And while we’re on the subject, how was Europe anyway? Saw your pictures on Facebook. It looked rad.”

Bonnie gave her a look askance and took a pointed bite of her pizza.

“Oh, come on!”

“Whatever happens in Europe, stays in Europe,” Bonnie said in between chews.

“That good, eh?” Liv asked enviously.

_Dancing on every bar from Dublin to Vienna and back. Bicycle racing through den Hagg with Caroline. Bungee jumping with Elena in Ticino. Hiking through magical hotspots with Freya and Nora._

_Wild parties. Wilder sex._

Bonnie shrugged. “It was OK.”

“Liar!” Liv shouted. “Besides, if it was just ‘OK’, doppel-Gilbert won’t have upped and left everything behind to stay there for good. What exactly is she doing there?”

“Finishing her medical degree at a hospital that has a residency program for trauma surgeons, specifically combat situations. That’s what she’s going to do,” Bonnie said with no small pride.

Liv rolled her eyes. “I knew all that. Jo is bursting at the seams with pride at her little protégée. Makes me check Elena’s online presence and everything. Which by the way has been silent for a while. Is she at a warzone or something now?”

Bonnie sobered. It had also been a while since she heard from Elena; they hadn’t spoken on the phone in ages – time zone differences and school made that hard – but they exchanged emails once in a while. The periods of long silence usually meant that Elena was somewhere incommunicado. Liv’s flippant comment wasn’t far off from the truth.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

Liv gave her a quick glance. “Well  _I_ can’t see any holidays or dates in the near future for me,” she continued breezily, clearly picking up on Bonnie’s mood and deciding to lighten the topic. “Not until the twins are pre-teens, probably. Jo practically begged me to move in here after I finished from Whitmore. Our stupid coven treated her like a pariah when she and Alaric came here and she needed someone in her corner. Kai was too busy playing impartial Coven Leader in the beginning, and Dad was too busy playing the noble ex-coven leader to be of much help.”

Bonnie tensed at the mention of Kai’s name and she hoped Liv missed it. She doubted it, if the flash in the other woman’s sharp blue eyes was any indication.

“Why didn’t the coven welcome Jo?” Bonnie asked hastily, trying to keep the conversation away from any dangerous topics. “They all turned out in mass for her wedding.”

“And miss the free food, free booze and a chance to gossip about the Parkers? Or watch the snobby families cat-fight over who got to gloat about being in a Parker wedding?” Liv asked drily.

Vaguely, Bonnie remembered that there had been some kerfunkle about the last minute changes to the wedding train.

“That it turned into a massacre didn’t do Jo any favours. Then the inquiry after and the whole business of the heretics being let out in the first place.” She gave Bonnie a pointed look. “They didn’t want to blame Kai who was, you know, responsible.”

Bonnie’s heart thumped. “They knew?” She gasped. “That he let out-”

“Lily Salvatore?” Liv finished, her eyes glinting again. “It was kind of obvious since usually, only the Praetor truly has access to the Ascendants. You know, Jo thought she stole the 1994 Ascendant but the truth was that she was bribed with it. If my father wanted it back, he could have got it anytime. But even then, the Ascendants are kept secret from one Praetor to the next, and for good reason: Prison Worlds are built to last for eternity. The 1903 World was breached because Kai went looking for something he shouldn’t have. When Lily escaped, it was only a matter of time for the rest of the heretics to follow.”

Bonnie felt the familiar guilt churning inside her. She reached for the pitcher, poured herself water with shaky hands and tried to drown it some.

“But, of course, the Council wasn’t going to indict its own leader for something like this. Like my father argued it was a stupid, dangerous mistake, but no real  _malevolentia_ [1]. But they had to blame someone, even if it was someone they couldn’t actually punish, so they latched on Jo. She was the closest Gemini around him at the time so she should have known better.”

“What? And he let them?”

“Of course not. And he didn’t let them blame you, either, which was something a few Council members also wanted.” At Bonnie’s gape, she grinned. “Besides the part you played, the Gemini don’t trust or like other witches. And even more compelling, it would have been awesome for us to have something on a Bennett. Oh, the possibilities.” Her eyes twinkled rather maliciously. Then she shook her head. “But Kai overruled all their recommendations, declared it  _immo iudicium_ [2] and closed the case.” She reached for Bonnie’s pizza and took a bite. “I’m guessing you have no idea what half of any of that means?”

“Whatever, Liv.” Bonnie rolled her eyes. “I get that Jo wasn’t abused by the coven and that’s all that matters.”

“Who said she wasn’t?” At Bonnie’s sharp look, Liv shrugged, and some of the mirth fell from her face. “The Praetor can overrule Council  _iudicum_ [3]. But he can’t go into people’s minds and overrule the way they  _think._ Lots of witches still blamed her. Weirdly enough, Kai not being a horrible Praetor is part of the problem. Some witches are now wondering exactly what was the big deal after all about the twins merging 18 years ago?Kai would have turned out alright back then, too. My father having to be Praetor way past his prime has been bad for the coven. Then there are the witches who aren’t comfortable that Jo  _exists_  at all.”

Bonnie was in the middle of a sip of water and she choked. “What?”

“Yep. She copped out of the merge.  _Twice._ ”

“That’s not what happened. Jo was going to merge with Kai. Luke stopped her.”

“No one cares about Luke,” Liv said, flatly. At Bonnie’s shocked stare, she shrugged. “All they care about is that it’s  _unusual_  for the Praetor and his twin to be alive at the same time. Some say it’s unnatural.

“And finally, there are those who still don’t care how good a Praetor he is. He will always be a syphon. They freak out over the fact that the coven leader is one sip of vamp blood and one broken neck away from being an actual heretic. Things have changed since he actually started doing the job. But back in the beginning of his reign, if Kai’s life hadn’t been in danger in the 1903 prison world, the council would probably have voted that he be left there for as long as it took Jo’s twins to grow up, merge and take the coven leadership from him.”

Bonnie felt a cold hand run down her spine. “That sounds so-”

“Cruel? Cold?” Liv smirked. “Is this coming from you? Really?”

Her temper rose, red and sharp. “You tried to kill him, too. Even though you knew it would have murdered your entire coven. So don’t you sit there and judge me,” Bonnie snapped.

Liv made a face, as if attempted murder and genocide was a bad hair-cut she had grown out of. “My twin just died. I was pissed. I’m over it now.”

Bonnie’s temper fizzled. “Yeah, I can see that.” They were all apparently over everything – Luke’s death, four murdered siblings, Kai returning from the prison world and terrorising them.

_“I want to give the Gemini coven an excruciating death.”_

It sure put her mad determination to keep him locked up in 1994 to protect these people into perspective.

Liv left the baby playing on the mat and went back to the kitchen counter and her open laptop.

“So I guess what you’re saying is that all is not well with the Gemini coven, and I shouldn’t feel too bad that you guys aren’t going to help us?” Bonnie asked.

Liv shrugged. “I won’t go as far as to say ‘all is not well’. It’s more like: we’re still kind of in transition right now and too many anomalies are existing at the same time. Many in the coven went into hiding after the merge because, you know, the abomination became King. Then Kai made up with Dad – I still have no idea how  _that_  happened – and Dad called them back. Saving our collective asses at Jo’s wedding helped a lot, too. But still...Kai’s only been leader for a year and he started out by making a spectacular mess of things with the 1903 prison world fiasco. Since then... Well, no one can’t say he doesn’t get things done, but he’s not very orthodox. Witches need constant reassurance. He may be Praetor, but if the whole coven revolts against him they can do some serious damage.”

“So this is politics, then. He’s protecting himself?”

“He’s protecting the  _coven_. We’re literally only as strong as our Praetor, and the Praetor is only as effective as the rest of the witches’ loyalty to him. We can’t do any good if we fall apart or are destroyed, can we?” She asked pointedly.

Grudgingly, Bonnie nodded. Of course, Kai had tried to say the same thing to her mere moments ago and it hadn’t sounded reasonable then.

She pushed that errant thought from her head.

“Do you have any idea how many enemies the Gemini have? You’ve been a witch for a few years and how many have you picked up?”

Bonnie actually started counting mentally before she gave up, shaking her head.

Liv nodded. “We’ve been around for  _two millennia_. We’ve stepped on a couple millions of toes. The last thing we need is our enemies knowing that we’re vulnerable. We’re not, by the way,” she said with a sharp, warning look at Bonnie.

Bonnie rolled her eyes.

“Our father supported Kai one hundred per cent and that got the Council on his side. All the exiles that count are back. Jo’s twins were born and there’s a clear succession plan. Kai’s methods may not be popular, but he’s got some great results. The coven’s back to being revered in the supernatural world.It’s actually been a good year for the Gemini.”

“Chill, Liv. I’m not going to tell anyone about your coven’s problems. I just wish Damon and I knew all this before we made the trip.”

Liv shrugged. “You got to see us all again, didn’t you?” she said cheekily. “And Kai.”

Bonnie gave her another warning look and Liv winked in a way that was so like her oldest brother that Bonnie felt her stomach hurt.

She looked instead at the baby, who had now somehow got hold of some book and was gumming at the edges. Bonnie dashed over to take it away. Rachel tugged a little, but there was not much fight in her, especially after Bonnie dangled a toy in front of her.

She went to put the book out of the child’s reach and an idea popped into her head.

“Do you have a Grimoire here that I can take a look at?” Bonnie asked, casually.

“I have a few upstairs,” Liv said casually. Then her voice sharpened with curiosity. “Why? What are you looking for?”

There was no point hiding it. “How to kill a heretic.”

Liv laughed. “You won’t find that in a Grimoire.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Bonnie retorted.

Liv hesitated.

“Liv, if there’s information there that can help-?”

“There isn’t,” Liv insisted. Then she shrugged, even though her eyes were still wary. “Fine. I’ll get you some and you can knock yourself out.”

“Thanks. I don’t suppose if you knew how to kill a heretic, you’d tell me?” Bonnie asked, one last ditch effort.

“Nope.”

“No, you don’t know or no, you won’t tell me?” Bonnie asked, exasperated.

“Both. I’ll tell you this much: the only person I know of that  _has_  ever killed a heretic, is my brother.”

Bonnie raised her chin. “I’m a Bennett. Believe it or not, Liv, I can be a pretty bad-ass witch, myself.”

“My point exactly: You’re a  _witch_.”

Her words were ominous and the look she gave Bonnie now was loaded with meaning. Then she went back to work, leaving Bonnie to chew on her pizza and her worries. And for the first time in a year, Bonnie finally let her mind go back to  _that_  night. To that time, when for a short time, she had been something more than just a witch.

* * *

**May 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

And there it was, just like that, the one possibility that Bonnie had refused to even let herself begin to consider.

She opened her mouth to shut it down at once – but Damon did it first.

“Not happening, bro.”

“I’m serious, Damon.”

“No, Stefan,  _I’m_  serious.  _You_  clearly have been inhaling too much of Caroline’s nail polish.”

“I’m on Stefan’s side in this,” Caroline snapped.

Damon looked skywards. “ _Colour me shocked!_ ”

“Not because it’s Stefan,” Caroline continued, glaring at the brothers in turn, “but because it makes sense. The Gemini fought and won against four of these heretics a year ago. I brought this up the first time we figured out what these guys were. I really don’t understand why we haven’t asked them already.”

“They also lost a lot of their witches fighting the heretics,” Tyler said quietly. “They might not be so eager to take the heretics on again, especially if they remain in Virginia, far away from Oregon.”

“We’ll never know unless we ask,” Caroline insisted. “Bonnie, don’t you think so?”

Many thoughts were churning through Bonnie’s head right now and she stared at her friend, struck dumb because she couldn’t decide which one she could say out loud.

“If the Gemini come to Mystic Falls, I’ll leave.”

Everyone turned to the spiky-haired vampire.

Enzo’s voice was hard, all trace of his usual irreverent humor gone.

Caroline looked betrayed. “Enzo, don’t you think-”

“No, Care, I do not. Their leader locked Lily up like some kind of animal,” he said through gritted teeth.

“She was a ripper, unstable, out of control…”

“So is Stefan,” Enzo roared. “Didn’t see anyone throwing him in the clink. Her sons didn’t lift a finger to save her, act like it’s no big deal” – he gave Stefan a particularly poisonous look – “but I do. I’m not asking help from the same people that locked her up. And none of you duffers should, if you have a lick of sense. You’ve all forgotten what happened with the Travelers. You don’t want to mess with the Gemini.They hate vampires on principle. Their idea of fixing problems like this is taking everyone out, good and bad. There’s no telling that after this whole thing goes down, they won’t decide to throw us all in the same clink. Or hang us from the same noose.” Pain crossed his face. “At least we’d keep each other company which is far better than the deal your mom got.”

Bonnie, Damon and Stefan glanced at each other in turn, secrets in their eyes, and then looked away.

Caroline’s eyes were shining. “We’ll get Lily back someday, Enzo.”

He scoffed, bitter.

“And what happened with the Travelers was a long time ago,” Tyler added. “It was a war between the two covens. We just got caught in the crossfire. The Gemini won’t betray us this time.”

Enzo’s lips curled in mockery. “Think your girl will protect you? Like how she did at the wedding?”

“I stayed to fight while the rest of you turned tail and ran and  _you_  are mocking me?” Tyler sounded more amazed than insulted.

“They should consider themselves lucky. If I knew what I did about Lily then, I’d have joined the heretics to fight  _against_ them,” Enzo snarled.

“You-”

“Tyler,” Bonnie interrupted. “I know I’ve asked. You’ve probably been asked a dozen times already by all of us. But I have to ask again. You outlasted me in that fight. Do you remember anything about that night?  _Anything_  at all that can help us?”

He gave her a helpless look. “I’m sorry, Bonnie. I’ve gone through this over and over in my mind. Liv and about half a dozen witches were battling against two heretics. They had managed to flank Liv on either side, and a third was bearing down on her from the rear. I blocked the spell, knocked it down, tore out its throat. I rolled to attack the other two. Then suddenly, it went dark. It shouldn’t have been a spell – I was in wolf form, immune to magic – but who knows with these heretics? Whatever they did to me, turned me human, and knocked me out. This was probably about an hour or so after Kai returned. When I came to, I was with the rest of the people they had ported to safety. Liv was still at the battle. None of the other witches told me anything. If the battle was over. If she was safe. Nothing. Just gave me some clothes, patched me up and put me in a cab home. I didn’t get to see Liv until days later. She didn’t tell me anything much then, too. Guess we’d said all we had to say already to each other.” A shadow passed over his face, but he shrugged it off with a patently fake smile. “At least this time, she didn’t knock me out and leave me lying on the ground.”

Bonnie sighed with disappointment. It was the same story he had told her already. Not even one iota of information was new.

“Knocked you out?” Damon asked, latching on, in his typical way, to the creepiest things. “What kind of kinky stuff were you and Goldilocks into?”

Tyler scowled. “Won’t you like to know, Damon?”

“So, if I get all you said right: you got your ass kicked, your girlfriend had to save you, and then she dumped you, probably because of all the above?

“Is this coming from the guy whose sorry-ass Elena dumped the minute she turned human and free from his sire-”

“We’re wasting time,” Stefan said, quickly cutting off the soon-to-be ugly altercation. “If we can’t agree on this, then we vote.” Everyone started talking at once but his voice overrode them. “They’re seven of us so we can decide on this here and now. And everybody has to stick to the plan.”

“Except me,” Enzo growled. “I’m bloody leaving.”

“Everybody except Enzo,” Stefan amended, indifferently. “I vote Yes. We need them. We eat humble pie and ask for help.”

Damon had gone back to glaring at his brother. “You’re willing to work with Kai Parker? After  _everything_?”

And there it was. The name. It was like a kick in her ribs, making her breaths shallow. Bonnie’s fingers knotted together painfully.

Stefan glared back at Damon. “Kai Parker is not the one I have a problem with.”

Even the others picked up on the sudden tension between the brothers, the load of unspoken resentment in Stefan’s words. They probably even thought they knew the reason for it.

They were wrong.

With a small shiver of surprise, it hit Bonnie then that somehow, impossibly, they had all four of them– Damon, Stefan, Elena and Bonnie – actually managed to keep that little secret for over a year.

“Well, I vote No,” Damon growled, then looked at everyone in turn with bulgingly menacing eyes, as if daring them to vote otherwise.

Caroline threw him a contemptuous look and flipped her hair. “I vote Yes, for all the obvious reasons. Put your stupid eyes back in your stupid face, Damon.”

“No,” Enzo said brusquely. He looked away from Caroline’s hurt face.

“Yes,” Tyler said quietly. He shoved his hands into his pocket, and his gaze was unwavering. “Stefan’s right. There’s no guarantee that they’ll agree to help us. But we have to ask. We have to put our differences aside and reach for help.”

“And you get your old girlfriend back, maybe?” Damon sneered.

Tyler didn’t deign to reply. He looked at Matt, who had been quiet all this while.

Bonnie turned to look at him, too, and was surprised to find him already staring at her. She couldn’t make out the look on his face, but after staring at her for a heartbeat, he nodded to himself as if he was deciding something.

“No,” he said firmly. “We don’t need the Gemini. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

He was still staring hard at Bonnie when he finished, and she had a feeling that he was trying to tell her something with that stare but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was.

It took her a moment to realize that all eyes were on her now.

“It’s a tie, Bonnie,” Caroline said. “Three-Three. You break it.”

 _Oh no_.

“Bonnie, we need the Gemini,” Stefan said sternly. “You’ve done your best but it may not be enough.”

“Stefan,” Caroline said, warningly.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bonnie said testily.

“If you say Yes, I’m walking,” Enzo repeated for the zenith time.

“No one cares, Enzo,” Bonnie murmured.

“It’s down to you, Bonnie B,” Damon sing-sang. “Class of ’94 reunion or no?”

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

An hour after Rachel joined her twin to sleep, Liv was still downstairs, working against her deadline and Bonnie was upstairs, cross-legged on her bed, skimming through four leather-bound books with the double figure crest on their spines – Gemini Grimoires.

Liv’s earlier reluctance made sense when she asked Bonnie to keep her use of the books to herself.

“Coven gets weird about sharing our stuff with outsiders,” she said. “Let’s not damage your already shaky standing with them.”

Bonnie rolled her eyes but agreed, more for Liv’s sake than her own.

The earliest entry in all four books was dated in 480BC. Before now the oldest Grimoire Bonnie had seen was dated from 1429AD. Spread before her on top of her patterned duvet was over a millennia and a half worth of chronicles of magical discoveries, incantation, experiments and major events; and she knew that these were probably not the oldest, not for a coven that had been in existence since a few centuries BC.

For the first time, it dawned on her just how old and ancient and  _permanent_  the Gemini were. Of course, she had known this before – academically. But now, the reality hit her with full force. She had got so used to Liv and her family – most of them – that she had forgotten that they were part of an institution that was older than many major religions in the world.

A shiver ran up her spine as she cracked open the first book. She wondered how she had ever imagined that she could waltz into their home base and bend them to her will.

_Kai staring her down across the kitchen counter, sharp-eyed, scruff jawed, with his rings of power and authority glinting in the low light. Every resemblance to that Peter Pan-like creature she had first met almost two years ago almost entirely erased from him._

Praetor.

 _“Not them,”_ her inner voice said treacherously.  _“You only need to bend one.”_

She shook her head to silence it.

There was a spell tailor-made for searching through magical text like scrolls and spell-books for specific information. She chanted it now, and asked for any record of heretics in the first book. She came up with nothing. She repeated the spell for the remaining three.

Nothing.

She searched for syphons. Siphoning. Syphon magic. The ability to draw out magic from living or non-living sources or both. Records of children of witches who had been born without magic.

Nothing.

She groaned and covered her face with her hands. She needed help with this. She picked up her phone and called Damon. It rang to the end. With a half-sigh, half-curse, she dialled Caroline’s number.

Her bestfriend picked on the first ring. She sounded perky, despite the late hour and Bonnie quickly filled her in on the events of her disastrous day.

“What’s the big secret about killing heretics?” Caroline asked once Bonnie was done.

Bonnie tugged on her hair. There was something – an idea – that had started taking shape in her head. But it was little more than a nebulous thought, tangled up in even murkier memories.

She shook her head. “I have no idea. What about you guys? Have you found anything?”

“We’ve already checked the entire Salvatores’ library twice already, your Bennett grimoires, the collection you got from the Martins’s. We’ve got nothing, Bonnie.”

“We can’t. The Gemini aren’t going to help us with this, Care. We’re going to have to wait it out until the vervain drives them out of town.”

Caroline said nothing.

Bonnie knew her friend well – too well. Alarm bells immediately started ringing in her head.

“What are you keeping from me, Care?” she asked at once.

“It’s probably nothing.”

“We made a deal when this thing started, when I came back to Mystic Falls. No secrets, lies or  _half-_ truths. No back deals, no hidden agendas. I want all cards on the table at all times or I walk.”

“Bonnie, chill.”

“Caroline…”

Caroline sighed dramatically. “Fine. It’s something Stefan and I thought of when we started painting the town with vervain. We hoped we’d be wrong but it looks like…”

“Just spit it out.”

Bonnie could almost see Caroline narrowing her eyes and bracing herself to give the bad news. “A vampire can build a tolerance to vervain. It usually takes years and years of small doses and we hoped that the heretics, being hybrids would take longer, may not even be able to…”

Dread formed at the bottom of Bonnie’s stomach. “But they have.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to say anything. We’re not sure… But they were spotted in the Park. It has vervain shrubs all over its boundary. But they were both there, strolling through the Park like if they were normal people, not blood-magic sucking monsters. They didn’t stay for long though. Barely ten minutes. Maybe they’re still…”

“… building tolerance? But that’s it, isn’t it Care? They are  _building tolerance_.” She ran an agitated hand through her hair. “We thought we’d found a way out of this. Something far from perfect, but at least something we could fall back on if the Gemini turned us down. Oh god, Caroline,” Bonnie said despairingly. “What do we do? When does this ever stop?”

“Don’t give up now, Bonnie,” Caroline said gently.

“I haven’t. It’s just… I fooled myself into thinking that this was over. That… I’d put this part of my life behind me.”

“ _Bonnie_ _…_ ”

She forced herself to get a grip. “I’m sorry Care. I just… I just don’t know what to do right now.”

“You’ll talk to him again. You’ll make him see reason.”

“I’ve talked to the Council. I’ve talked to K… their leader. I mean, I could ask Damon to go talk to him but that would probably end with someone’s head on the floor.”

“You’ve got to try harder.”

Bonnie rubbed her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I’ll talk to Jo tomorrow. I’ll ask her… beg her to make a case for us.”

“You’re better off talking to Kai yourself.”

Bonnie swallowed her impatience. “Care, I already told you-”

“Or maybe more than just talking…” Caroline’s voice was so quiet that Bonnie barely made out her words before they trailed off.

Bonnie almost wished she hadn’t. “What are you trying to say, Caroline?” she snapped.

Her old and usually dear friend exhaled noisily, then started speaking very quickly. “Maybe if you and Kai worked out your issues with each other…”

“Caroline…”

“…you could get him to help us. Whatever he felt for you is clearly still there and I know you…”

“Caroline!”

“…care, too. Just think about it, OK, Bonnie?” Caroline spoke louder, clearly determined to finish what she had to say. “It’s a win-win for everyone. You make up. He fixes the heretics. Everyone lives happily ever after. Except, of course, the heretics.”

“Caroline.”

“It’s for a good cause.”

“ _Caroline, are you out of your-?_ ”

“Oh, look at the time. I have to go.”

The line ended abruptly.

Bonnie covered her mouth with her hands and screamed into them. The urge to call Caroline back and rip her a new one was overwhelming. Instead, she channelled it into furiously searching through the Grimoires, her spell-work so erratic now that the pages of the books flew as the magic flipped through them, some of the loose sheaves rising into the air.

 _“To find the 1903 Ascendant, I have to navigate ancient texts, undo layers and layers of cloaking spells_ _…_ _”_

She shook her head again and asked for any mention of Lily Salvatore.

Nothing.

 _Kai sitting across from her in the café, his eyes hard as he sipped his drink and dared her to turn down his offer_. 

_Kai’s eyes burning through her as she stood before him in that room, daring her to leave._

Any mention of the 1903 Prison World.

Nothing. 

 _Her own hands running through his thick hair, tracing with awe the zig-zag line of white strands that had sprung across his head_.

Any mention of  _any_  prison world.

Nothing.

_Kai catching snow with his tongue._

_His tongue. His mouth._

_“Running away, Bonnie?”_

“Get out of my head,” she whispered out loud.

But he was in her head. Had never quite left, if she was to be honest with herself. And now that Caroline had planted this insane idea, it had taken root, it was growing. The more she tried not to think about it, the more it filled her mind.

 _“It’s for a good cause,”_ Caroline’s voice whispered in her head like a snake.

“Damn you, Caroline,” Bonnie muttered, spelling the books shut. She wasn’t thinking this. She wasn’t considering it.

 _“Whatever he felt for you is clearly still there_ _…_ _”_

Caroline didn’t know that. How could she from a terse and edited summary of a thirty-minute conversation? How could she when  _Bonnie_  didn’t know that? All she knew was that it had been a mistake calling Caroline. It had definitely been a mistake the first time she had broken and confessed to her and Elena.

Desperately, Bonnie picked up her phone and dialled Damon again. He had been the first person she had wanted to talk to over the Gemini’s refusal to help and when the phone rang to end without him picking, she nearly threw it on the wall.

_Her fingers trapped between Kai’s wrist and the leather wristband, his other hand sliding along the hem of her shirt, his rings brushing lightly against her waist and setting off tiny explosions under her skin._

She thought she had pushed the memories into the furthest recess of her mind, forgotten for all time. But now they came flooding back in such clear detail, she felt she would go insane.

 _His salty skin. And his blood_ _…_ _she could have died happy drinking it._

Damn Caroline’s suggestion. Damn her.

She was actually shivering, Bonnie realized, her arms coming around to hug herself. She picked up her phone again and her fingers hovered over the keypad. A thrill of shock ran through her. She didn’t have a number to call. Didn’t know the number to call. But she had picked up the phone with every intention of calling  _him_. 

_“It’s for a good cause.”_

She could ask Liv for his number. Liv would give Bonnie a knowing look but she’d give Bonnie the number all the same.

 _Oh god, am I truly considering this?_  Bonnie thought to herself as she started walking towards the door.

The moment she opened it, she heard the baby crying and then Liv’s footsteps rushing up the stairs.

They met at the door of the nursery.

It was only one twin. They bundled her out before she set off her sister.

“I thought you were asleep,” Liv said, almost accusingly as she looked at Bonnie with tired eyes.

“No,” Bonnie replied. They were standing near the top of the steps and Liv was carrying Martha, swaying as she did so.

“Let me take care of her,” Bonnie said desperately. “I’m not anywhere near sleep and you have work to do.”

Liv literally dropped the baby into Bonnie’s arms faster than a hot potato. Bonnie clutched the child to herself as if she were clutching her salvation.

The next few hours were so busy with feeding, changing and entertaining Martha – who apparently had a more cantankerous personality than her easy-going twin – that she almost succeeded in chasing away the insane idea that Caroline had planted in her head.

Almost. 

Martha, after all, was the child that her uncle had been rocking to sleep a few hours ago.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

If not for the sudden silence that surrounded her, she won’t have even been aware that they had ported. Her body was still locked in Kai’s arms, his broad shoulders blocking out both light and air.

His body was heavy on hers, his bloody, brooding face inches from her own. For a moment, they were both still, staring at each other. Then her brain kicked in and she shoved hard with her hands and with magic. She was a little surprised that he yielded, falling back to a crouch before her. She skidded backwards as fast as she could until her back hit something hard.

That was when she managed to look round and register the familiarity of her surroundings. They were in her college dorm room. She had backed into the foot of her own bed.

The room was empty of everyone except Ms Cuddles who was sitting on Bonnie’s pillow, and Bonnie could swear that the bear was staring with a “ _what the fuck is he doing here?_ ” look on her face.

Which was a very good question.

“What the hell, Kai?” Bonnie gasped. She glared up at the man who had brought her here against her will. Kai was already on his feet and she could feel the magic he was drawing into himself. He was getting ready to ditch her.

The bolt of power she sent at him was propelled with more anger than finesse, but it did the trick – literally tripping him up, and stopping his portation spell.

“Woah!” he yelled, hopping.

“Take me back, Kai!”

He smirked – he actually smirked – as he righted himself, smoothening down the black tuxedo that fit him like a glove, stained as it was with soot and blood. The blood on his face had dried there, his eyes were lit from the effort of recent magic, his jaw was set and Bonnie couldn’t help thinking that his bloody face was reflecting the madness of the mind within. Between his face and his suit, he looked lethal, more so than usual.

Her dorm room was large, luxurious really by any standard, but with him inside it, the room suddenly seemed very small, constricted almost like if his very presence had consumed all the air. 

Bonnie swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat.

“You can drive yourself. Should take you about an hour in this weather. Oh wait, your car’s stuck at the venue. Uh oh.”

She glanced out then, and through the open windows, she could see the storm churning across the sky. And now that she was listening for it, she could also hear the rumble of distant thunder. All the stations had predicted clear weather this weekend. That was the whole point of the wedding being fixed for today.

But of course, none of the meteorologists could have predicted tonight’s magical showdown.

“I will Uber my way there if I have to,” she vowed.

Kai’s smirk wavered. “Is that some kind of portation spell?”

Bonnie blinked at him, and it took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t joking. Of all things to almost make her laugh now: Kai Parker, man out of time, still figuring his way around 21st century jargon.

It was her turn to taunt. “Possibly.  _Phaesmotos uber_. Also, I’m a Bennett, remember? And no one can MacGyver as good as me. You go ahead, Kai. I’ll see you in five.”

His face hardened. “Don’t you dare go back there, Bonnie.”

Bonnie rolled her shoulders casually, infuriatingly. “Hurry along now. Don’t you have a wedding to get to?”

He took a step towards her, his face menacing and her smile slipped off, her heart jumping as she scrambled to her feet quickly, magic rushing to her fists.

He halted. His face twisted. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled.

“I believe you. Do you know why? Because I’m not going to  _let_  you.”

“Did you miss the memo, Bonnie?” His growl was now tinged with exasperation. “The one in the form of Headless Horseman there re-attaching his head? In case you hadn’t figured it out: it wasn’t PWR that made those things indestructible back in 1903.”

PWR. Prison World Resuscitation. That had been the explanation, back in 1903, for how a heretic that they had watched get blown into pieces before their eyes, had been up and running mere moments later.

Apparently, they had been way off the mark.

For a split-second, Bonnie wasn’t in her warm dorm-room but in a winter wasteland, staring down into nauseating whorls of gold.

She couldn’t hide her shudder and Kai nodded grimly. “I know this is impossible for your brain to comprehend but I’m trying to keep you safe here.”

Her hackles rose at once but she held her tongue. The less she said, the sooner he’d leave and she could figure out her next move. But if he imagined she was sitting this out, he had another think coming.

His eyes narrowed at her silence. “Comprehend is another word for ‘understand’, or in case that’s also too hard, it’s also a stand-in for ‘get’. Do you get me, Bonnie?” 

Bonnie almost hated herself for rising to the obvious baiting but she simply couldn’t help it. He did that to her. “You’re right. It is impossible for me to understand that you’re up to any good. I  _get_  that much.”

Kai advanced on her, his taller and larger build clearly intending to intimidate her. But Bonnie stood her ground, lifting her chin defiantly.

“This. is. not. your. fight,” he grounded out. His face was bent so close to hers that she could see the blood on his face was dry and flaky.“You know, the IQs of all your friends put together can barely make one functional brain but even  _they_  figured out that much. They all took off first chance they got. They left you,” he added, for good mocking measure.

Bonnie recoiled, stung. “They didn’t know I was there! I was coming to warn them and your coven.” And  _to warn you_ , she added in her mind and that made her even more furious. That she had actually been  _worried_  about him – for his coven’s sake, yes but still – this was the thanks she got?

“Yeah, I noticed,” he said, surprising her because at the time she got to the ceremony, she could have sworn he had half a dozen other more pressing concerns at the time.

A literal half dozen – six heretics all hell-bent on destroying his coven.

“Your timing could have been better but hey, it’s the thought that counts. By the by, however did you know they were out and coming to the wedding?”

And the question made Bonnie wary for a totally different reason. “What does it matter?” she muttered.

But he was already figuring it out, realisation fast dawning on his face. “Were you…? But of course, you had to be…  _What were you doing in my apartment, Bonnie_?”

The question should have been intimidating. And it was, Bonnie insisted to herself. But it was also – the way he asked, his voice going low, his eyes glinting as he stared hard  _through_  her own eyes, as if he wanted to pull out the memory from her head, so that he could replay for himself the image of her in his house.

She had a flash of memory from earlier that day – her own self, running her hands over his clothes, his bed.  _For_   _ingredients for a spell!_  She snapped to herself. But it didn’t stop the sudden heat from rising in her face, or her own feet from stumbling as she took a step back, suddenly overwhelmed by his proximity.

He followed, closing back the gap and then entering her space. The back of her legs hit the bed and there was nowhere else to move. His scent filled her nostrils – a strange mix of blood, wood and brimstone that should have been repulsive but was strangely … not.

“Bonnie,” he said again, his voice still low. His eyes were now flickering from her face to the bed behind her and back.

The already thin air between them became even thinner. Feeling like if she needed to distract him from  _whatever_  was going through his mind, she burst out quickly: “They were looking for you. To kill you. We tried calling ahead to warn everyone but…” She shrugged helplessly. “So I drove like hell to get to the ceremony on time to warn you.”

His face softened. “Well, on behalf of my coven, I thank you.”

He sounded genuine, even smiled a little, tentatively; he was so obviously mocking her.

A sarcastic retort was already on the top of her tongue when Bonnie caught his eyes and it died there.

His eyes were shining with something that in another person, she would have sworn was gratitude.

Warmth mingled with confusion rose inside her. He was mocking her, she told herself; he  _had_  to be. Because even if – and it was a very big IF – Kai was ever going to thank her for anything – why for this? It was such a stupid thing to be grateful for – her attempt to help that hadn’t even succeeded; she hadn’t stopped the heretics from getting to the wedding; she hadn’t even got a warning to him in time. 

In the past, she had done far more tangible things for her friends than just a botched warning; and all she had to show for that was Elena’s increasingly absent-minded appreciation or a back-handed compliment from Damon.

Thankfully, this train of insidious, confusing thoughts was cut short by what he said next.

“But now, this is Gemini business and you’re going to stay out of it.”

Bonnie’s spine snapped straight, that momentary warmth chilled at the imperiousness in his voice. “No, I won’t. Not when I’m needed. Do you even know how to kill those things?”

“ _Do you_?” he mocked.

Bonnie clenched her fists. “Stop getting in my way and I’ll figure it out.”

He looked like if he wanted to shake her. “I said no, Bonster! I know you get a turn on from putting your life in danger, but you’re going to look for cheap thrills somewhere else today!”

“Look the other way if you must, Kai but I am coming. And stop pretending that you give a damn about my safety.”

“I don’t give a damn about you in anyway,” he retorted.

“Perfect,” Bonnie said, baring her teeth in a mock grin. “So I’m coming.”

“I don’t want the bad karma of a Bennett, no matter how misguided this particular breed is, dying at my sister’s wedding.”

Bonnie couldn’t help it – she burst into laughter. Even to her ears, she sounded half hysterical and she could tell from the way he was looking at her, that he thought so too.

“You’re up against something you don’t know how to kill. I would have thought a coven leader would be desperate for any help he can get at a time like this. But instead, you’ve been wasting time here while your people are fighting, trying to persuade me  _not_  to help. Makes me wonder what you’re really trying to achieve here, Kai.”

For the first time since they got to Whitmore, his face lit up with fury. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His tone was ominous, a clear warning to Bonnie not to answer – and obviously, a challenge that she wasn’t going to back down from.

“I’m beginning to wonder if you really want to save your coven. You’ve only been plotting to destroy for them for the past two decades. Maybe that’s why you’re so determined I’m not there to save them. Maybe that’s what this is really all about – an excuse to abandon them. Are you even going back there?”

His chest was heaving now; he looked angry enough to breathe fire. “I won’t even dignify that with a response. I don’t give a damn what you believe, Bonnie, but you stay out of this or I swear, I’ll-”

“You’ll what, Kai?”

If it were possible for a look to burn, his furious eyes would have turned her into ashes by now. She probably looked the same. For a long moment, they just glared each other down, neither giving an inch. They were so near now, they were breathing the same air. She could see the torn skin under the line of blood that ran from his temple to his chin. The incongruous thought flashed through her mind that he really ought to have that seen to. 

Then his eyes narrowed, the fury giving away to something cold, calculating. He stretched out his arm then, silent magic whispering, and Bonnie tensed, her own magic ready to set him on fire. But his hand went over her head – and Ms Cuddles, who had all this while been sitting on Bonnie’s bed minding her own business, came flying from her pillow into his grip.

Bonnie stared incredulously as Kai grinned at the bear. “Betcha thought you’d seen the last of me, huh?” he snarked, something like real fondness spreading across his face. Then his eyes fell back at her, hard and still calculating.

It hit Bonnie then, horror rising inside her.

“No,” she shouted – and the silent, automatic  _Motus_  sent him flying across her dorm. She  _vatosed_  the beds after him for good measure.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to her door, yanking it open and rushing down the corridor.

It was like something from one of her dreams. Her running down the dark corridors of her dormitory and Kai chasing her. She was looking back to see if he was following – and that was when she bumped into something tall and hard that had suddenly appeared in front of her.

Her breath went out in a whoosh at the impact, cutting off her scream. She tried to backtrack but his arm whipped round her waist, yanking her against his hard body. Panicked, she slammed her hands against his chest, pushing back for some much needed breathing room. She barely got an inch. His grip on her had absolutely no give.

She tried another  _motus_  but he was ready this time, and it fizzled away into the air.

“No,” she panted, despairingly. “No.”

He waved Ms Cuddles in her face; the little bear had never looked so menacing. “You’ll get it back,” he said, his voice as hard as his grip. “It may not look like to your righteous mind but I’m doing you a favour.Consider this a freebie.”

Then her magic was rushing out of her pores. The first bolt of pain sent her reeling into him, and she felt his arms draw her close. But after that, the pain sank into a muted throb, to be replaced by a dizzy nausea that made her feel like if she was slowly dying. 

He was saying something, his words fast and angry, but she couldn’t hear over the roaring of blood in her head.

When the darkness beckoned, she stepped into it gladly.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

The text message must have come in sometime in the early hours of the morning but by then, Bonnie was fast asleep – finally – and dead to the world. She didn’t see it until early the next morning.

There was news from Matt. Someone who looked very likely to be a witch had been found dead in a motel near Mystic Falls.

* * *

[1]malevolence/ ill intention

[2]no judgment can be passed as no offence has been committed / a non-trial that shouldn’thave happened in the first place

[3]judgement / decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all the lovely feedback I got on the last 3 chapters. I promise to respond to each and everyone of them this week. :)


	5. tag, Bonnie. you’re It.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In present-day Portland, Bonnie considers Caroline's suggestion as twins brainstorm.  
> In the past, Bonnie wonders if she's playing a murderous game, and Kai contemplates the cost of vengeance.

# 

* * *

**May 2013**

She looked at his bared wrist with horror, even more so as she felt the veins on her face deepening, her strange new teeth cutting against her gums.

“Put that away,” she said weakly.

It would have been easier if he was smiling, smirking, looking at her with any kind of mockery that would make the defiant stubbornness in her rise. But his face was dark with something like desperation. When she didn’t reach for his wrist, he tilted back his neck so that she could see the thick vein jumping underneath his skin.

It took everything not to launch herself at him there and then.

“I hope you don’t mind if I try to exert some control in all this.”

His voice wasn’t helping. It was lower than she’d ever heard from him, the timbre of it causing vibrations in her stomach.

She edged back from his wrist like if it were a viper, stopping only when she backed into a column. She went around it, wrapping her arms around it, and holding on for dear life.

“Better I offer than you lose control and maul me. Learnt that the hard way. Plus draining me, means the deaths of my family and coven, and an absolute waste of all the energy I’ve just spent keep us all alive. But probably worse for you is that the wards in this room will fall at my death and you, dear Bonnie, will prowl through this hotel and turn it into a mausoleum.”

“I’d never…”

“Yeah, you’d like to think so, but I’m something of an expert at spotting a hungry heretic.And when – not if – you kill me, who knows what’s going to happen to  _you_ , mmm? You might turn back to a witch. Or you might just get stuck like this for good.”

“Stop it. Stop  _taunting_ me.”

“I’m not taunting you. I’m warning you. Just like I warned you that this would happen and what do you know? I was right then; and I’m right now. You’re going to lose it soon.”

“I won’t…”

“I know you won’t. You know why? Because I’m not going to let you. Drink.”

His words were almost as tempting as the scent of his blood under his skin, even the dried flecks of it on his face and bare torso. She gripped the column so fiercely that it shrank under her newfound power.

“How long will this last?”

“An hour.  _Maybe_  less but not by much. You can’t hold out that long.”

“You are!” she said, accusingly. But even as she said it, she could see the cracks in his composure. His accelerated heartbeat. His shallow breathing. The way his fists kept clenching, like if he was barely holding himself together. Even the way his voice broke slightly when he spoke. She’d missed the clues before but now, her heightened senses were making her painfully aware of him now.

He was absolutely desperate.

He smiled, and she could see his fangs. “I lived in an empty planet for eighteen years. I have more self-control than anyone alive you probably know. And if you’re feeling  _half_  the hunger I’ve felt all this time I’ve been in this room with you, then you’re probably going out of your. fucking. mind. Drink.”

“No.”

He scoffed, then he lifted his wrist to his mouth.

“ _NO_!” She shouted.

Fresh blood flowed out of his skin. The scent of it filled her nostrils – iron, magic  _and_ him.

It was in her mouth before she realized she had moved.

She felt the sigh leave his body, heavy, shuddering and she could swear she tasted his triumphant relief in his blood. But she could barely register it, caught up as she was in drinking. His skin was salty, his blood was amazing, liquid electricity flooding her veins.She was holding onto his arm with both hands, all but gnawing through the flesh as she tried to get as much of his blood into her as possible.

The same arm curled her into his body, his long fingers actually gripping her shoulder as his bare chest pressed against her back. His other arm wrapped around her waist, a heavy band that she had no intention of escaping, lifting her so that her bare feet kicked against his legs. He was saying something – asking something – his words coming thick and fast and pleading in a voice so low she felt them echoing in her ribs.

She nodded her permission, partly because she didn’t care – not for anything beyond drinking – and partly because the new aching in her core wanted to, desperately wanted to have him drink from her as she drank him.

He tilted her head, and she let him guide her easily, not caring as long as his wrist stayed in her mouth. His fingers trembled slightly as they stroked her hair, and then she felt his lips pressing against her neck. For a moment, he just left them there, as if he was bracing himself. Then with a sigh that made her whole body shudder, his teeth pierced through her skin. Her magic, her blood, was already there waiting for him and when he drew from her, she shuddered, her knees buckling, but not with pain.

His groan was so loud, so close to her skin that she felt like if it was an earthquake. The ground was opening beneath them, and Bonnie let Kai pull her through it, not caring if it swallowed her whole.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

It was barely daybreak. Alaric and Jo had been back for an hour, looking smug. Although shortly after, Alaric had rushed to the nursery to check on “the other two women in my life”, and Jo had hopped to bed obliviously. Liv was still working in the kitchen (“I’ll crash all morning. It’s not only vampires that get to have all the fun”) and Damon sauntered into the house to find an irate Bonnie in the middle of packing.

Tentatively, he confirmed that he had also received an update on their heretic problem.

“Er… about last night, I stopped at a bank for a drink. And after that, I got-”

“You’re an ass, Damon,” Bonnie muttered as she stuffed her makeup into her purse.

Damon loitered in the doorway, turning sulky. “Oh come on, it’s not like you didn’t have enough help. Heard the high and mighty Gemini president himself was around. Isn’t it a good thing I wasn’t here to get in the way of official witchy business?”

“I thought you were worried about him hurting me? Or do you only pretend to care when it’s convenient for you?”

He blinked at her. “Woah! Don’t tell me this is just because you changed a few extra diapers yesterday?”

She didn’t say anything, just angrily folded her jeans.

He paused. “I told Liv I was sorry, you know.” When Bonnie stared at him in confusion, he waggled his brows. “You know… about the whole Luke thing. I apologized properly to her this morning and everything. We’re good.”

Bonnie had forgotten about that already. On another day, she would have been surprised that Damon himself even remembered, to say nothing of apologizing – but right now, all she could think of was that he was already pissing her off enough as it was.

He fidgeted a little under her glare and said carefully, “And so you asked Kai and he said No. Disappointing, but we always knew there was a chance that would happen. We’ll just go back to Plan A – vervain them out.”

“Plan A’s not going to work.”

“Why not?”

“If you were here yesterday, you’d get why,” she said through gritted teeth.

He waggled his eyebrows. “Fine. Then we go to Plan B.”

“We don’t have a Plan B, Damon!”

“I always have a Plan B,” he sing-sang. “I just… don’t know what it is yet.”

Bonnie slammed her box shut and glared at him. “Somebody else died and you’re here cracking jokes. Make yourself useful for a change and find out if we can get an early flight out of this town.”

“OK, I’m going to let all that slide because you are clearly suffering from PMS right now. Either that,” he added as she growled, “or something else happened yesterday between you and the President of the United Covens of Gemini?”

“Get lost.”

“Definitely PMS then,” he quipped and made himself scarce.

Bonnie directed her glare to the grimoires stacked neatly at the foot of her bed and remembered her conversation with Caroline from the night before. A conversation that had triggered a fitful sleep filled with dreams of things best forgotten. 

_“_ _…_ _if you and Kai worked out your issues with each other_ _…_ _”_

The night before she had been one crying baby away from doing something that was at best very stupid and at worst very dangerous. And now…

Suddenly weak-kneed, she sat down on the bed.

Damon did not have a Plan B. But she did, didn’t she?

A mental bell rang in her head, its peal deep and ominous.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

Bonnie rang the doorbell and waited.

It was a few hours before the wedding and she had jumped at the chance to run the errand and escape the bride’s camp. At first it had been nice to have her friends hover over her so solicitously, but after a while it had put her on edge. So last night’s bachelorette party had ended with her spending the night in the ICU.That was a day in the life of Bonnie Bennett.

It was not like if she had actually died.

Alaric answered the door. He looked exactly the same, right down to the facial hair that wasn’t sure whether it wanted to be clean-shaven or a beard.

Bonnie brought up a mental image of Jo that morning in the middle of hair stylists, pedicurists and the makeup expert that Caroline insisted needed to be there.

The men had it so easy.

“Here you go.” She pushed the box into his hands. “Your cravat.”

His face reddened. “Oh my god, I was supposed to pick this up yesterday.”

“I know. Or rather, Caroline knew. The person that doesn’t know is Jo. So you owe us big time.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

He laughed. “I’ll remember.”

She peered around the room. A few beers were on the table, and what appeared to be a ring box. Other than that, it didn’t look like the house of someone who was about to change status or make any other major life-changing decisions.

“Should you be up and about after last night?” he asked.

Bonnie sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m really tired of telling people that I’m fine. Is Matt around?” she asked quickly, both to get to the task at hand and to stop him from poking. “We’re supposed to pick up the flowers together, some hitch with the floral contractor.” She also had another errand in mind, a thought that had taken shape in her mind as she drove here, but she didn’t feel the need to share that with Alaric. 

“He just stepped out with Tyler for some…” Alaric coughed. “Refreshments.”

 _More beers, you mean_ , Bonnie thought while keeping her face as straight as possible.

“He’ll be back soon. You wanna wait?”

“I guess,” she said, a little uncomfortable now. She and Alaric hadn’t really had much to say to each other since she came back.

He nodded and made a show of tidying up a little while she perched at the edge of the sofa. He came to sit across from her, still holding the cravat box in his hands.

“Thank you, Bonnie.”

She smiled. “No biggie. I was coming to get Matt and the flowers, anyway.”

“Not for this,” he chuckled, then coughed a little. He looked both serious and nervous.

Bonnie shifted, guilt and confusion seeping through her. “If it’s about going back for Kai, I only did what I had to do. You don’t need to thank me.”

“Oh god,” he whispered. “I have to thank you for that, too.” He slapped his forehead and his shoulders shook slightly.

How much exactly had he had to drink? “Alaric, is everything OK?”

“Everything’s great, Bonnie!” he said, still chuckling. Yeah, he definitely had had one too many. “Everything’s fine. And it’s because of you.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“I… I was dead, Bonnie. I died. But you brought me back. You were in pain, you were dying but you still tried to bring everyone back. Jeremy said, you saved everyone but yourself. You didn’t have to. You could have lived a little longer if you hadn’t. But you brought me back to life. I found Jo. I  _have_ Jo. We’re going to have kids. Can you imagine me, a Dad?”

Bonnie nodded, swallowing against the lump in her throat. She could actually. She could imagine it very well.

“I got a second chance at  _life_ , Bonnie. How many people can say that? And it’s all because of you.”His eyes were shining.

“I…” She swallowed again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Now, I also have to thank you for saving my horrible brother-in-law and keeping Jo and my children alive. When I think about when Damon asked me-” He made a face and wiped his eyes. “When Jo told me what happened yesterday, how close we all came to losing you.  _Again_.”

“I think everyone’s getting a little carried away over what happened last night,” Bonnie muttered, slightly mortified.

Alaric continued like if he hadn’t heard her. “I owe you, Bonnie. Anytime. Anyday. Anything. OK? Remember that.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she whispered. Her heart was actually aching a little bit.

Alaric shook his head, wiped his face again.

Right on time, the door opened and she heard Matt’s and Tyler’s voices. “We got the beers. We got the good stuff. We got-  _Bonnie_!” Their garbled song ended with a high-pitched exclamation point.

Before they caught sight of her, they had been waving two six-packs like pom-poms. Bonnie relieved them both of their burden.

“You guys, I think Alaric’s had enough. If you don’t want Jo… No, if you don’t want  _Caroline_  to come here and whoop all your asses, you’d better start brewing some coffee. STAT. Not you, Matt, you’re coming with me.” She peered into Matt’s slightly hazy blue eyes. “Are you sober enough to drive?”

He and Tyler exchanged scoffing glances. “I got us back here, didntcha?” He boomed into Bonnie’s face, smelly breath and all.

Bonnie nearly gagged. “We’re going to stop at the local Starbucks.” She started dragging him along.

She caught a glimpse of Alaric’s face staring at her and she smiled back tentatively, her heart so full she almost couldn’t breathe.

“Come on, Bonnie. Just one beer,” Tyler whined as she slammed the door behind them.

It took two coffees and one stop at the flower shop, but Bonnie was recovered enough from the weight of feeling that Alaric’s unexpected gratitude had filled within her; and Matt was sober enough, for her to tell him what was on her mind.

“Visions about Kai, Lily and the heretics?”

Bonnie shrugged. In the warm, clear light of daytime, it all sounded a bit melodramatic.

But when was the last time her life  _wasn’t_ ever melodramatic?

“Sometimes all of them – Kai, the one with red hair, the big blond. Sometimes it’s just the heretics. Sometimes, it’s just Lily. Sometimes… it’s just Kai.”

The dreams that only featured Kai tended to be slightly different from the rest. Bonnie felt her face heating up and pretended to stare at something out her window as they drove back to the event.

“If it’s been going on since you got back from 1903, maybe you were having premonitions of Lily trying to kill you? But Lily’s gone now,” Matt said. Then he made a scoffing sound. “I still can’t believe Damon and Stefan just let Kai send her back to the Prison World.”

“She abandoned them. She had found a new family. She tried to sabotage his relationship with Elena,” Bonnie hesitated. “She attacked me.” And even now, the last filled her with more surprise than gratitude. 

The events of the night before were still so hazy. She had woken in the hospital with Elena’s tear-streaked face hovering over her, then her friend hugging her so tight she swore her bones had bent a little. Even Jo had been spooked, acting as if Bonnie had  _died_.

Bonnie shook the thought away. Her days of dying were far behind her.

Matt gave her a concerned look. “So if your dreams warned you about Lily, you think they’re still warning you about something else, right? You think the heretics are going to get out? That Kai’s going to get them out?”

“He has the Ascendant.”

“But you said that you  _rescued_  him from the heretics. Why would he try to get them out? Why bother sending Lily back if he’s just going to release her family?”

Bonnie rubbed her hands on her face. “I don’t know, Matt. I just don’t trust him, you know? I’m just waiting for him to do something to pay me back…” She bit her lip and felt her heart tighten again, this time for a completely different reason.

She hadn’t seen Josette’s knife since 1903. By the time she had noticed it gone, Kai had left her, and anyway, Bonnie had far more pressing matters to worry about. But since then, every once in a while, her mind would go to the knife. Had it dropped into the snow in 1903? Or had Kai taken it?

The same knife he had stabbed her with in 1994.

The same knife she had stabbed him with in 1903.

_Tag, Bonnie. You’re It._

She clasped her sudden shaking fingers together. “I’m just waiting for him to pay me back,” she repeated.

Matt nodded. Then he hit the brakes, and turned the car in a U-turn so abruptly that Bonnie rocked into her door.

“What the-?”

“He lives in an apartment off town.” At Bonnie’s inquiring glance, he added, “Some of their people are crashing there. I think the kid is in Jo’s train. The local hotels are packed with Gemini so Alaric and I had to arrange lodgings for the extras.”

 _That sounds awkward_ , Bonnie thought. Although, she also thought, that was not quite as awkward as Jo sending out wedding invitations to the brother that carved out her spleen or the father that tried to murder her.

“If the 1903 Ascendant is there, do you think you can locate it?”

“I think so. Matt, you’re helping me with this? You believe me?”

“If Bonnie Bennett has a hunch, I’m not going to be the fool that ignores it.”

A warm feeling blossomed in her heart and the two of them exchanged smiles. Matt’s truck bumped along the road, racing against time.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Jo snored. She always had but Kai didn’t remember it being this loud, or this annoying. He rubbed the skin of his wrist under the black leather strap as he waited for the infernal racket to end while the tension in his head and in his heart stretched taut.

After a good fifteen minutes, he twiddled his fingers and sent his sister the magical equivalent of a good hard shove.

She woke with a jerk and looked around, her eyes wild. He looked over guilelessly from where he sat by the window and waved at her with his fingers.

“Finally, you’re awake. Long past the time most respectable people are up and about.” There was a lot more bite in his voice than probably needed to be. He was here after all, to ask for her help. But it had been a bad night – no, a bad couple of days – actually, a bad couple of weeks – or maybe just a bad year…

Long and short of it was that Kai wasn’t in the mood to play nice with anyone that day.

Jo slumped back, with a sigh.

“I don’t know what is sadder,” she said tiredly, rubbing her eyes. “The fact that your face is the first one I see this morning or that I’m so used to your complete disregard of boundaries that I can’t even work myself up to be annoyed.”

“Good morning to you too, Sissy,” he answered with fake cheer. “Also, you still snore.”

That got her attention. “I do not.”

“Alaric is a better man than I ever gave him credit for,” he continued, blithely.

She spared him one frosty glare before her gaze morphed into concern. “What’s wrong? You didn’t wake me up this morning to talk about the Brooklyn situation or the dragon cults or the quandary with the Nine Covens or any of the other stuff you’ve been dealing with this month so why are you here?”

He never could put anything past her for long.

“To see my favourite sister,” he said dryly, turning to stare blindly out of the window. The only thing he could see was  _her_  green eyes, staring up at him accusingly. “Why else?”

“Whatever it is, spit it out so I can get some sleep. Gab is in this morning and I had big plans for my sleep cycle.”

“How’s the old biddy?” Kai queried, genuinely interested. It had been a while since he bumped into Gab, the old woman who had practically raised him and Jo while their parents were busy running the coven. She’d been away for her brother’s funeral.

“Still gaga. Half the time she talks as if he’s still alive.”

Kai squirmed with guilt and worry. “Maybe, it’s time you…”

At Jo’s glare, he fell silent. They both knew full well why Jo couldn’t trust anyone else with the care of the girls.

“Gab’s  _fine_. Great with the twins and most importantly, she lets me sleep in. Which is more than I can say for other people in this room. So next time, use the door. Praetor or not, you don’t have the right to port into my bedroom. There are boundaries.”

“Says the woman who let a vampire into a house with two babies.”

“The house is vamp proofed to my eyeballs. He’s practically human inside here. Besides, Damon doesn’t eat babies. That I know of.”

Kai grimaced. Clearly his sister didn’t know about the ‘worst day’ of Damon’s life during which he ate a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Alaric clearly didn’t know either or he’d have told Jo. His sister and her husband were thick as thieves.

It was disgusting, really.

Kai and the vampire were not friends – and he’d never trust Damon as an ally again but he knew what it was to live under the shadow of one’s past. As long as he was confident of his family’s safety – and he was – and until Damon gave him cause to, Kai would keep the murder of the Salvatore relation’s wife and child to himself.

Of course, the moment their visitors from Mystic Falls left, Kai was going to personally cast the enchantments that revoked the vampire’s permission into the house.

Visitor _s_.

The pain behind his ribs worsened.

But all he said now was, “well, your vampire babysitter skipped on you last night. I got here just in time. So you’re welcome, Sissy.”

“Now, that’s a sight I’d have almost given up my night to see. You, Bonnie and babies.”

He couldn’t help it. He flinched.

There was a pause. He could feel Jo’s guilty gaze on his face and he looked away. In the far distance, he could ‘hear’ the activities of the other witches in the house, his senses specifically attuned to Liv’s, to Gab the nanny, and even the little twins in the nursery. They were all Gemini witches after all, and all their magic answered to him.

Then his basic witch senses picked up on the vampire in the study; and something even deeper, something that had been within him long before he had magic, connected to the non-Gemini witch in her bedroom.

Bonnie.

Black hair shining under the faint kitchen light. Green eyes flashing at him. That cupid’s bow mouth, full and soft and curved with spite as she threw words at him like hexes. It had been a month since he had seen her last – although she probably thought it was a year – and still the reality of her was a shock to his senses. 

She was flitting through the house now. Awake. Alert. Annoyed.

If Bonnie’s aura was a flame, then Kai was the moth that wanted to fly to her and be burnt.

Again.

“They’re not leaving until late evening,” Jo said quietly, and he could hear the unspoken apology in her voice. “That’s plenty of time for conversations… maybe more?”

“Good for them. Excellent weather for flying. Clear skies,” he answered blithely.

“Kai…”

He gave her a warning glance and brusquely changed the subject. “And while we’re on the topic of Mystic Falls and its usual drama, guess who got themselves killed last night?”

He told her.

That got her back on track. She sat up, face pale, eyes wide. “No.”

He knew what she was thinking. First Tony and Rose Stewart at Jo’s own wedding, dead at the hands of heretics and now their great-aunt, in the same way. Now all that was left of the once proud Stewart family was the ageing Bethany and a grand-daughter.

“That poor family,” Jo whispered. She looked completely shattered.

He looked away, grimacing as frustrated remorse smote through him. “Yeah. Someone needs to find out which Elder broke a cursed mirror.”

“And that’s three now, right? The Briggs. Now Judith Stewart…”

“Yep. Three of the coven witches that went into self-imposed exile the moment I became leader are now dead.”

“By the hands of the heretics you released.”

The way she said it made him throw her a furtive glance. The pained shock was wearing off, replaced by a look of calculation. Her voice was almost aloof with coolness.

With suspicion?

“Not exactly how that went down, Jo,” he muttered.

“That won’t matter to a lot of witches.”

“What do  _you_  think?” he shot back at his sister.

She hesitated. He could practically see the gears turning in her head. “I don’t think you had anything to do with this, Kai.”

He didn’t realise until Jo said it and he sighed, that he was holding his breath. He looked away so that she won’t see the gratitude that had threatened to overwhelm him.

For someone who had lived most of his life, natural and unnatural, without emotions, the maelstrom that had overcome him after the Merge had almost driven him mad. The spiralling events that had followed shortly had not helped, coming near to almost completely pushing him over the edge. Even now, a year after everything, he still had nightmares about what depths he might have sunk to if things had gone just a little bit differently.

As it was, he already had more than enough on his conscience. The guilt and grief at the lives he had ruined and taken would always remain with him, but none more so than those of his own siblings.

He had sought help in his own way – the Internet, various self-help books, even the short-lived stint with a god-to-honest psychiatrist on Jo’s insistence. They all said more or less the same thing – time would heal the sharper, more crippling emotions, but they would never entirely leave him; he would always carry the burden of guilt within him, and the best he could do was to redirect it positively and make the rest of his miserable existence worthwhile to others. Most importantly, it was imperative that he asked for forgiveness from the survivors of his malice – but he should not expect it because he had no right to it; could never do enough to earn it; and should resign himself to the possibility that as desperately as he would want it, he would never get it.

So that was why, even after all this time, the reminder of Jo’s forgiveness, Jo’s acceptance, Jo’s  _loyalty_ to him still had the power to stun him.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said in a weak attempt at lightness.

Jo looked at him in a way that made it very clear he wasn’t fooling her for a minute. “Anyone with half a brain could figure that it’s not your style. You’re more … hands-on, so to speak.”

Kai couldn’t tell if she had picked up on his discomfort and was trying to ease it, or if she meant her words. Or both.

She was already turning back to the matter at hand. “Well, no matter their loyalty or lack of it to you, that’s three dead Gemini witches. The Council’s going to have to change their tune now.”

“You’d think that, right? I got the news a few hours ago. I summoned an emergency Council right away-”

“Wait, what – you ported Council members out of their beds?” She was gawking at him.

“You heard when I said  _emergency_ right?”

She laughed incredulously. “I’m sure they loved that.”

“Apparently not. They were more bugged about that than about Judith Stewart’s death. It certainly didn’t make much difference to them.” He got to his feet, started pacing the untidy bedroom. “No dice, Jo. Still no.”

“What? No way.”

“The usual bull. Witches die all the time. Witches who separate from their covens die even more easily than others. The heretics are content to stay in Mystic Falls. The town is sort-of equipped to manage them, and seems to have a handle on them. Nothing about the situation warrants our interference. Yadda yadda yadda. Let’s leave well enough alone. Now since we’re all here, we might as well talk about that empty Council seat. Cue bickering.”

“I can’t believe it. They chose to do  _nothing at all_?”

“OK, maybe not absolutely nothing. Exile or not, Judith still hailed from one of our oldest houses. There’s Bethany to consider, too. So Councilman Parrish will be going on an all-expenses paid trip to Virginia to ‘observe’ the goings on. That was the fall-out of the emergency meeting.”

He kicked the leg of a table in frustration.

Jo cringed. “The Council has no objectivity where the heretics are concerned. They’d bury their heads in the sand until the heretics burnt their way across the country to Portland. Then the same Council will turn around and point their fingers at you,” she warned.

“Yeah, I thought of that,” he said. “Some were there the night of your Red Wedding. What they saw clearly scared religion into them. I’d overrule them in a moment and hightail it back to Mystic Falls. I wanted to a month ago when those vermin turned up like a couple of bad pennies.”

“So why haven’t you?” she prodded.

He stopped pacing and gave his sister a piercing look. “Because that would be missing the bigger picture. The question isn’t  _why_  the heretics are back, it’s  _how_. How do you think that happened, mmm? Because I was damn sure that we rounded up all those freakshows that night before I executed them. How the hell do you think two of them managed to escape?”

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

_What do you think, Malachai? Was it worth it?_

Jo’s Red Wedding ended in a gigantic barbeque. A group of young witches stood at the edge of the huge bonfire, hooting and casting unnecessary  _fiendfyre_  spells as the flames rose impossibly higher and higher, un-impacted by the torrential downpour.

But most of the Gemini still standing were consumed with more useful pursuits. The shattered Western portal had been repaired, and the wounded were being carried through. There were deep ditches in the ground where hell-hole spells had been cast, and a group of Envoys moved from one to the other, sealing them back with careful, painstaking magic. Other Envoys were moved across the field, finding and neutralizing any lingering effects of malicious hexes that still remained. But they could only do so much. The auras of witches who had lost their lives, the potency of the magic that had been cast here, and the sheer violence of the past few hours, would linger over these grounds and mark them cursed for decades, if not centuries.

Most of the Councilmen and Elders had already left, but a few remained, and those stood with Joshua Parker, having a slow conversation. There was no time for a formal meeting but already questions were being raised and some form of answers needed to be given before harmful rumors could be allowed to take life.

The Praetor himself should have been part of this group, or at least taken an active role in organizing the Envoys and the other helpers in their work, but it was his family that took his place. Joshua dealt with the leaders, and Liv Parker had helped to set up the Portal. Now, after giving instructions to the Envoys, she worked with the witches who were collecting the dead.

All this while, Kai Parker stayed apart from the rest of his coven. Scant meters from the flames, closer even than the boisterous young witches dared, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, tall and silent in the rain, his form highlighted by the bonfire that he gazed unseeingly into. A few people had met him earlier – touched his shoulder, murmured thanks – but his curt one-word, and eventually non-answers – had rebuffed them. Now, glances flitted to him, as questions were murmured behind his back. But everyone gave him a wide berth.

“So you were right and we were wrong, yet again, Joshua,” Tony Genova, fellow Councillor to the now ex-Praetor told Joshua as they stood in the rain and watched as a fiery ditch slowly closed before their eyes.

Joshua’s voice was grave. “Your concerns were not unjustified.”

“Justified and timely. The failsafe might have come in useful earlier this night,” Bethany Stewart said, her eyes sharp and accusing on Joshua.

“The failsafe,” Valerie Hildegard said sharply, “was the reason why we didn’t complete the  _Redimio_ [1] and we almost lost the coven this night.”

Joshua sighed. “We were all caught unawares.”

“And in the end, we didn’t need it. The syphon – the  _Praetor –_ saw to that,” Tony interjected, his voice now tinged with amazement. “I never knew a heretic could be killed in such a way.”

“It has always been theoretically possible. There were studies many centuries ago,” Joshua replied, his voice distant.

“I’m more interested in why those heretics were free in the first place,” Bethany Stewart persisted, her voice cold as she glanced now at the bonfire and the man that stood alone before it, then turned back to Joshua. “There will be an inquiry. Too many people died.”

Joshua bowed his head. “I am sorry about your son.”

“His wife, too. My grand-daughter is an orphan now.”

There were cries and murmurs of sympathy. One loss was expected – theirs was a dangerous life. But two from one family in the space of one night? That was indeed a tragedy.

Bethany waved them off. “I don’t want commiseration. I want answers.”

She would obviously have said more, but her old friend, Parvathi Patil took her elbow. “Come, Betty, we can do more on the other side of the Portal.” The two women drifted away.

The others watched her leave. “Betty won’t leave this be,” Mark McGordon said.

Joshua’s response was curt. “She shouldn’t.” 

They said very little after that. At least nothing that was of any importance to Kai where he listened with his newfound supernatural hearing. His composure was a mask, inside he was burning as furiously as the  _fiendfyre_  before him, the ruination of magical essence from more souls than he had ever absorbed at once running through his veins like fire. He was fast realizing that the spells that he had cast on himself to ride this through were not going to be enough. Neither were his Sanskrit rings, which were supposed to share some of the burden. Now they were pushing back power on him, feeding into a vicious magical cycle that would soon send him to his knees – or drive him mad.

It would be the ultimate irony, he thought, if he ended up either dying or turning into the same thing he had just saved his coven from.

He could have gone long ago, but he wanted, perversely, to watch the last of the heretics fall into ashes. Maybe then, the satisfaction that he was expecting from all this, would finally come.

So he stayed. And he waited. Long after the  _fiendfyre_ was empty and turned on itself, long after the crowd had thinned to a handful, he was still waiting. It didn’t come. That sense of victory, of vindication. Instead what came was an emotion that Kai would gladly have exorcised from his soul, but one that he had become horrifyingly familiar with since the Merge:

Guilt.

His eyes weren’t only burning because of the smoke from the flames, or the warring of auras clashing inside him.

_Was it worth it, Malachai?_

The question wasn’t  _his_ , Kai thought furiously. The guilt wasn’t  _his_. It was Luke’s. That and his inability to enjoy this moment. Apparently, even the simple pleasure of getting even, was something he was going to have to learn to live without. Not for the first time, Kai wondered who had really won the Merge.

Another tremor smote him, and he staggered where he stood. He felt eyes turn to him immediately. They were all watching, he knew. All whispering, all wondering. Even after everything that happened today. They probably always will.

_Are they wrong?_

_Shut up, Luke_. He said tiredly.

In the flames, he could see the heart-shaped face of little Judi Stewart. He had glimpsed her at the ceremony. She and her Genova friend had been disproportionately smug at being chosen to be in Josette Parker’s train.

Now, she was an orphan.

Quentin Parrish, one of the envoys said to Kai’s sister. “Portal will soon close, Olivia. We need to round up the rest.”

“Who’s left?”

“A few councilors. The Pr-er, I mean your father  _and_  the Praetor.”

“Get my Dad.” There was a pause as she walked from the other side of the field to him. Liv’s question was hesitant, diffident in a way that she had never sounded to him before. “Kai, are you coming?”

“No,” he growled.

She hesitated. “Are you OK?”

He didn’t answer.

Her heartrate, already loud and pounding, increased slightly; and he was so grateful that at least, he could still tick off Livvie-poo.

“Suit yourself.”

He heard his father say something about staying with him, but Liv managed to dissuade him. Then they were finally leaving. Joshua was last, his eyes lingering on his son for a long moment as he stood in the Portal. Then he, too, was gone. Moments later, the Portal collapsed.

Kai ended the  _fiendfyre_  spell. The smoke cleared at once, and nothing, not even ashes, remained of the six heretics.

Well not nothing. The ghosts of the dead Gemini witches remained. As well as Kai’s own guilt.

He unclasped his hands, and curled his fingers to make the portation spell. Magic flowed through him at once – too easily. He closed his eyes and his body shook with pleasure at the rush of it. It was like the overwhelming excess of the Traveler’s spell all over. It occurred to him – because he was a syphon and by his very nature, he would always revel in magic – that he could probably learn to control this power, with time. But he rejected the thought almost before it was completed. The cost was too high.

The rain disappeared as he ported.

* * *

[1]loose translation: ‘coronation’ of the Gemini Praetor


	6. not a battle, a massacre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemini vs Heretics. Kai vs Jo. Who lives, who dies, who tells the story?

# 

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

The last thing Kai saw before he ported from the cool hotel suite was Bonnie’s irate face. So it was only appropriate that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes to the scorching, deafening and bloody chaos that was his sister’s wedding was his father’s livid one.

The night kept bearing gifts.

“What the hell are you doing?” Joshua Parker shouted. His eyes were filled with horror.

Kai cracked his neck, held himself back from ramming his fist into his father’s face on sheer principle. “I took a detour fixing a problem I asked  _you_  to deal with. What did I miss?”

His eyes were already sliding from his father, barely taking in the tapestry of magical violence spread before him, as he sought out the glimmering rings of the Portal. He spotted it almost at once, its glow lighting up the Southern boundary. Before it, he could make out a line of witches throwing hexes at a heretic that was repeatedly charging towards them, apparently trying to breach the Portal.

He had barely registered all this when a scream burst out from somewhere beside him. He and Joshua turned to see a witch fly across the hall, followed immediately by a creature in red. Kai threw out his magic, in tandem with his father and the heretic froze, then shattered into pieces.

“That’ll buy some time,” Joshua muttered then he turned to Kai and grabbed his sleeve. “Get out of here.”

Kai tried to take his arm back but his father held firm. “What the hell, Joshua?” he spat. “You don’t give me orders.”

“Where did I hear that before?” Joshua said irritably. “I don’t have time to deal with your ego, Kai. Leave.”

“So you can take all the glory and I live the rest of my days as the Praetor That Ran? No, thanks,  _Dad_.” He snorted. “What’s the plan? Wait for me to scram, save the day and make me look bad? I’d bet good money you’re carrying an Ascendant on you.” He hooked his fingers in preparation for a summoning spell.

Joshua blocked it. “You foolish boy.  _You_  destroyed the 1903 Prison when you let these things out.”

Kai reeled. “I… I d-”

“You might as well have! What possessed you to free the ripper?”

Not what, who. But of course, Kai wasn’t going to tell his father that. Or tell his father anything at all.

Not that Joshua was waiting for an answer; he was in full rant mode. “It would take months to build a new Prison to hold six heretics, and we’d have to trap them first.And as for  _glory_?” he spat. “Look around you, Malachai!”

Kai did. Saw the glass littering the ground, the flames, the blood, the twisted knots of smoke hovering in the air that indicated spot-sites of magical duels – light against dark.

The bodies.

So many bodies.

And not one wore a red robe.

Even the creature they had just obliterated had vanished, probably re-awakening somewhere in the ether.

Kai fought back a wave of nausea – and guilt. Despite the still ambivalent feelings he held for a lot of the members of his coven, he hadn’t wanted  _this_.

“Do you see?” Joshua said bleakly. “ _We’re losing._  We’ve ported out the young, the old, the sick. Now we’re moving teenagers, the injured, those too weak to any longer. The rest of us will hold the line until they are through. Then we shut down the portals. This is not a battle. This is a massacre. Now get out.”

“I’m the most powerful person here and you’re asking me to run?” Kai asked incredulously.

“You’re holding the lives of every single Gemini witch in your unworthy hands and I’m asking you to  _live_.”

Kai finally yanked his arm back. “I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to win.”

“Kai-”

“See those party crashers in red? I’ve a good reason to think that I’m the only one who’s qualified to bounce them. Besides,” buried fury lashed in his belly, “they welcomed me with open arms in 1903. I’d like to return the favour. Sorry to ruin your last stand, Dad.” He shouldered his father out of the way and jumped into the fray.

A pair of older witches ran past him, chased down by a red figure. He shot out a spear of power at it.

The woman’s red hood fell back and her long curls streamed behind her. Its tips lit up with flames that propagated along the length of her hair. She died screaming but Kai didn’t stay to enjoy the sight. He was racing south as fast as he could, towards the shimmering glow of the Portal, stopping now and then to lend a magical hand to any skirmish that crossed his path.

He finally made it within yards of the Portal, and now he could make out his own Livvie Poo, clearly in charge of the quartet of young envoys that guarded the Portal. She threw vicious hexes that made Kai proud but the scarred heretic before her, just bounced them back lazily, even though it could probably have easily taken down at least two witches. Kai hesitated, cloaked in the shadows, wondering what the ploy was.

Finally, one of Livvie’s hexes snuck past the heretic’s reflexes and the creature staggered back, choking – then charged forward with an angry snarl, flinging out a curse that would have killed off half of Kai’s living siblings. He threw out a hand quickly to block it – but someone was faster. The werewolf that he had not even noticed until then – launched itself onto the heretic, the curse catching on, and bouncing harmlessly from its immune body. The wolf buried its jaws into the heretic’s neck and both went crashing on the ground.

All eyes were on the macabre sight before then – and that was when the second heretic, clearly bidding its time all this while, charged.

Two envoys were on the ground before Kai could react. It reached for Livvie next – and his sister was still standing, frozen, too shocked or too slow to reach – when Kai sent a wave of power at it. It screamed as its skin tore, revealing blood and black magic, swelling obscenely until it exploded. Pieces of heretic fell to the ground. Livvie jumped out of the way with a yelp of disgust. It was only then that she looked around at her fallen friends and she let out a low gasp.

Her eyes met her brother’s as the wolf padded back to her with its bloody jaws.

“Go,” Kai said hoarsely. “Set up another Portal for the injured to the North. I have need for this one.”

She didn’t argue. Without looking back, she left, leading the surviving envoy and her wolf with her.

He ran up to the Portal, to the very edge where the magic threatened to pull him inside. Raising his arms up, he started chanting, channeling its power and transforming it at the same time. The rings on his fingers burnt as the rings of the Portal turned from their silvery blue glow to a dark, red blaze.

His arms were sore when he lowered them, but that was a small price to pay. The magic was already settling in the Portal. For the first time that evening,  _finally_ something was going his way.

He heard the whistle of a hex aimed at the center of his skull in the nick of time. He dodged it, and it shot into the Portal, turning the rings black for a moment, before they blazed back red.

He swirled to face the two that were materializing before him.

“ _Malachai_ ,” snarled the peroxide-blond reject that Kai had ‘affectionately’ named Iceman.

“Nice to see you too,” Kai snarled back and threw lethal hexes from both hands in rapid succession. Iceman dodged the strike and the spell smashed into the ground, opening up a crater beside the heretics. The second heretic – Gingerdum – absorbed the magic with one hand and returned fire with the other hand. Kai flung out a shield but it went up a tad too late, and the edge of the hex struck just above his brow. Blood spilled into his eye, half-blinding him.

He staggered a little, blinking rapidly, but his shield was still up and the barrage of hexes that both attackers were sending merely smashed against it.

“ _You will perish for your treachery_ ,” Gingerdum was ranting.

“You have no idea what that word means, do you?” Kai muttered.

He was curling his right hand into the shape for a bone-crusher, preparing for the pause to drop his shield and strike.

The moment came and he had the satisfaction of hearing bones snap and crackle. Another hex and he had shoved them both into the crater and yet another sealed them in.

He smiled.  _This can still work_ , he thought, as flexed his fingers, rings glittering in the light of flames and spells as he channelled his power...

And something flung itself on his back and sank its teeth into his neck.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

“I was damn sure that we rounded up all those freakshows that night and then I sent their black souls into Oblivion. How the hell do you think two of them escaped?”

More to his frustration than to his surprise, Jo shook her head. “Don’t be paranoid, Kai. No one in this coven would have helped any one of those heretics then or any other time.”

“Your faith in our backstabbing little serfdom never ceases to touch my ugly black heart,” he declared.

“You keep calling them serfs and very soon you’re going to have a revolution on your hands. How many times do I need to tell you: the Praetor is only as strong as the witches’ loyalty to him?”

“I play nice with the other kids, Jo,” he exclaimed in protest. “I give the old fossils in the Council my ear all the time. It’s hard to believe it, but when they put aside their petty politicking, they actually give good advice. Yes, that happens once in a blue moon but you never know when, right? Besides, when I’m too busy getting stuff done to hold their hands and make them feel important, that’s what Dad’s there for.”

Of course, Jo couldn’t counter that because it was true. Like many others, she had probably thought it was a phenomenally bad idea for Kai to give Joshua Parker a seat in the Gemini Council but that move ended up being a stroke of brilliance, if Kai said so himself. It had turned his father from being Kai’s biggest enemy and a rallying point for the witches seeking to flee the coven – to becoming his staunchest supporter and his unofficial liaison with the rest of the Council. And when Joshua Parker vouched for him, a lot of the witches who had gone into exodus when Kai became leader came back in droves.

It amused Kai that his sister could still be so surprised at how well he did politics. In his pre-merge life, he had pretty much survived by learning, imitating and manipulating the emotions and inclinations that came so naturally to everyone but himself. A year of figuring out how to get a handle on  _his_  own emotions hadn’t made him lose his old talents. If anything, they had come in handy in figuring out his own head.

Particularly where a certain black-haired witch was concerned.

Kai clamped down on that line of thought before it derailed him.

“You’d get on better with the Council if you just tried to be a little bit less… you sometimes,” Jo said with the voice of a woman who had given this advice repeatedly and was exhausted. “But back to the point: if you think one of us rescued the heretics to … I dunno… pull them out of their sleeves like Jokers a year later to lure you to Mystic Falls and kill you, you’re… You’re being more than paranoid, Kai. You’re being flat out ridiculous. Why would anyone in the Gemini coven want to kill their leader?”

“I could be the nicest Praetor in the world and there’d still be someone who wants to play game of magical thrones with me. Maybe someone lost a bet on how many bodies I’d drop in my first one hundred days in office and is looking to get even?” At Jo’s look of outrage, he chuckled humourlessly. “Sorry. Too soon.”

But still, someone somewhere had to be disappointed that the forebodings had not come to past. That the mad man hadn’t burnt the coven to ashes. That he hadn’t murdered his father, gutted his pregnant sister, ripped into shreds everyone that opposed him and drank the blood of their children.

Instead, he had, against all odds, saved all their asses. And thanks to a series of hard lessons early on in his reign, he had got his head on straight about just what it meant to be Praetor. And he had thrown himself into it.

Perhaps he had thrown himself into it a bit too much.

“Think the Genovas or the Lovegoods could be behind this?” He asked Jo now.

Those two families were some of the nastier elements in the coven, previously considered untouchable and allowed to indulge in forbidden arts unchecked for generations. A member of each of those houses had sat on the Council for centuries, the last being Anthony Genova and Mary Louise Lovegood, whose duties had concluded a few months into Kai’s reign. One of his first ‘official’ acts when he returned to Portland was to evoke a privilege that Praetors rarely exercised – and forcibly retired two serving Council members. Then he had proceeded to lay down the law on both houses. Most of the witches had watched in anticipation of a rebellion or even self-imposed exile. But the Genovas and Lovegoods had toed the line. Perhaps all they had needed was a Praetor strong enough – or crazy enough – to bend them to his will.

It was just one more of Kai’s actions as coven leader that inspired an interesting mix of approval, outrage and outright fear from the other witch families.

“Powers or no powers, their lives are still linked to yours,” Jo countered. “I would suggest looking outwards – at some of our newer allies that you brought in by force. But in all honesty, I can’t imagine a pack of wolves or a swarm of faeries or any of the other covens having any kind of influence over these heretics.”

Kai nodded in grim agreement. A few months back, he had used his scheming talents to repair old alliances with other supernatural elements, alliances that had been broken or forgotten because of his coven’s paranoia. The Council had not liked the fact that the new Praetor was more likely to cut a deal with a werewolf clan than to cut off their heads. But they couldn’t deny that he got more results his way. And when those had failed...

Well, he was mega-powerful and that streak of violence in him had been tamed, not erased.

Jo had told Kai once that the Council thought he was impulsive and he had laughed out loud at that. The truth was that he was a stickler for their protocol, and always took counsel before making a decision. He meant what he said – some of the advice the Council and the Elders gave  _were_  worthwhile. He was as likely to go along with a recommendation as to go against it.

Their real beef, he suspected, was that he didn’t drag his feet long enough for them to catch up with him. He made up his mind as quickly as possible, and stuck to his guns. Councils, elders and petty factions be damned.

They had got too used to his father. Joshua had been formidable once upon a time, but he had had to be Praetor far longer than was normal – and his leadership had become overly cautious, even by Gemini standards, as a reflection of that. Over the past two decades, he had filled his Council with like-minded witches and now they were struggling to keep up with his son.

Jo sometimes told Kai that the witches whispered that the new Praetor was more ruthless than the former one had been in his prime. He considered it a compliment.

“What does Dad think?”

Kai bit back a groan. Of course,  _Sissy_  was going to pick up on his thoughts and start the discussion at a tangent that was not only furthest from his mind but completely in contradiction to it.

He had had eighteen years to forget what that felt like – growing up with someone who thought exactly like you but in the polar opposite direction.

But he had been reminded shortly after her children were born, when Jo had faced down the coven for her twins.

Although Kai had killed the debate eventually, Jo had gone from the wary indifference to coven affairs she had had when she first moved to Portland, to taking a more active interest. Powers or no powers, Jo Saltzman was still the sister to the current Praetor, the mother of the coven’s heirs, and the daughter of the most influential wizard on the Council. Only an ostrich would fail to realise that she had a big stake in all things Gemini; and Jo wasn’t that.

So she had started increasingly voicing her opinions to her twin brother and in return, Kai had gradually taken her more and more into his confidence. Being able to bounce off problems against a brain that worked like his had proven invaluable. Over time, she had become his informal counsellor / sounding board and the one person in the coven that he trusted absolutely.

Still, there were times when their differences in some fundamental ideologies left him wanting to tear his hair out.

Like now.

“Our father gave his recommendation with the rest of the Council,” he answered shortly.

She rolled her eyes. “I meant one on one. After the Council meeting.”

“He didn’t stick around to chat.” He barely reined in the flare of anger at the disappointment on his sister’s face. “We’ve had this conversation before, Jo. I know this makes me a big fat hypocrite but Father and I are never going to repair the father-son bond we never had. We share an overwhelming interest in the welfare of the coven. Other than that, we don’t have anything to say to each other and we both like it that way.”

“I wonder why,” she said sadly. “You guys are more alike than you think.”

Now that made him laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

Either the baby hormones had finally scrambled his sister’s brain or he was right and his sister indulged occasionally in juju weed.

Thinking of juju weed made Kai remember his conversation the night before with Bonnie.

He groaned inwardly. It seemed like his brain found every possible reason to bring her to the forefront of his thoughts! His chest tightened as a specific memory flashed through his mind. Bonnie between him and the kitchen window, her face so near that he could count each of her eyelashes, could smell her breath with each exhale.

Even now, he could feel her essence in this room. It dusted the entire house; it would linger here, this second home of his, long after she had gone.

He was equal parts thankful and resentful for that.

Jo’s eyes were searching. “Yes, you are.”

It took him a startled moment to realise that she was still going on about him and his father.

“Jo-“

“Duty before love. Coven before everything else, right?” Her voice was sad. “Gee, wonder where you picked that from?”

“That’s not true,” he said warningly. She was pushing it.

His sister’s gaze was unrelenting. “Not yet. But you’re getting there, little brother. There were many times you could have gone to Virginia this year. The nomad vampires. The Smallwood pack.”

“Their pseudo-Founders’ Council did their own housekeeping. Those potatoes were too small for Gemini interference.”

“What about the dragon rumors?”

“Some run-of-the-mill shapeshifters with delusions of grandeur. I’m not one to rely on Astromancy, but even the experts ruled that a Landing would be impossible; and if an Old One had been revived, we’d all know now by the … I dunno… current apocalyptic conditions, dontcha think?”

Jo rolled her eyes.

The Southern Court had confirmed that a pair of their shapeshifters had gone rogue a few weeks before the first dragon sighting last Summer, and they had tracked them along every major sighting since then. Kai had volunteered a few Envoys to the Court’s manhunt and although it was taking longer than he’d like, it was only a matter of time before the idiots were brought to justice. He supposed the temptation of having a bunch of mundane cultists spring up like weeds in response to the shapeshifters’s theatrics had been too much to resist. But the fall out of all that nonsense was that sooner or later, one of those cults would go too far, and then the Gemini coven would find themselves – himself, to be precise – wading in the murky waters of the river of palaver that flowed whenever the same mundanes the Coven was committed to protecting became dangerous nuisances.

“Besides,” he chuckled, thinking about this bit, “how the heck would the Mystic Falls Scooby Gang have been able to deal with a real dragon?”

“Yeah, and wasn’t that convenient for you? Even if you had needed to look into things, you’d probably have just sent a few envoys and stayed away yourself.”

Kai stared her down, daring her to say it.

She did. “You’d have found some reason to stay away from Bonnie.”

He kicked her table again and was pleased to see her jump. “Why shouldn’t I have?” he asked coldly as he started pacing again. “The situation was being handled… and I knew where I wasn’t wanted.”

_“If you think this changes anything between us, then you’re mistaken.”_

He felt his hands ball into fists. The leather on his wrist crackled as magical static rubbed against his skin.

“You didn’t give her time. Oh my goodness, Kai! You  _terrorized_  that girl and you expected her to just let everything go because you had one night-“

“You really need to mind your own business, Jo…”

“Now, you’re sending her packing to Virginia with the impression that you hate her so much that you won’t do your job just to spite her, knowing full well that you’ve been digging into this matter from the moment you first heard about the heretics re-appearing!”

Now that shocked Kai into stillness. “How the hell did you know about that, Jo?”

Because he had been playing that very close to his chest. At the first whispers of Mystic Falls’s newest tenants, he had bought a plane ticket to Virginia and used it. Heretics in Mystic Falls and Bonnie in Whitmore, four hours away.That was two reasons too many for him to get involved. But he had hoped she’d stay out of it. She had, surprisingly, managed to stay out of that town’s troubles for a year. But as it turned out, he had hoped in vain; she had been right in the thick of things when he got there. He had barely made it to Virginia in time.

The Council had recommended against getting involved and officially, he had concurred. Unofficially? What he did with his private time as a private person was none of the Council’s business.

So how the hell did Sissy of all people know about this?

Jo shrugged. “That’s not important.”

“Like hell it’s not. Have you been spying on me, Jo? Got a few witches in your pocket shadowing me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped. “I kept calling you to help with the twins that weekend and you kept putting me off. I asked Liv to port over to your place and you weren’t there. I put two and two together.”

“I could have been with someone,” he grumbled.

“Ha!”

Oh for goodness’s sake. He didn’t need this. To stand here, feel Bonnie  _everywhere_  and deal with Jo’s smugness all at the same time.

He turned on his heel and walked towards the door.

“Kai! Come back, OK? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Behind him, his sister sighed.

He froze where he stood, a few steps to the door. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he wasn’t angry at Jo. He wasn’t even very angry at Bonnie.

Well, he wasn’t  _mostly_  angry at Bonnie.

Whom Kai was really angry at was himself, or rather, at his own feelings. These horrible feelings that a year later, had only gotten worse. Stronger. More hopeless.

That misguided shrink had tried to feed Kai some psychobabble about locking his redemption onto the one person he had hurt the most. Kai grudgingly admitted to himself that there was some truth in that. But he had also meant it when he told her – what seemed like eons ago – that they were even. He would always be haunted with what he did to Bonnie – the guilt of it, as much as the regret of paths not taken. But he also knew that she had got her own back at him, with interest.

So why couldn’t he let go?

“You need to give her time,” Jo said uncannily. “But, Kai... Even if you never get the kind of relationship you want with Bonnie, you can’t let yourself turn into this… machine that doesn’t feel or care for anything beyond his duty.”

“You say that like if it was a bad thing,” he muttered.

“It’s a bad thing because you can’t keep going on with this… this… thing with Bonnie. You can’t keep bottling everything inside, not wanting to try, not wanting to let go, hurting her, hurting yourself. Neither of you can.”

Something warm gripped him at her words. It took him a moment to realize what it was. Hope.

 _No, you loser_ , he told himself at once.  _Don’t do this to yourself._

But still. “Neither of  _us_? Did… did Bonnie say something… about me?”

Jo’s face was pained. “Oh, Kai.”

So much for not hoping. He couldn’t even keep it out of his voice, out of his face – if his sister’s reaction was anything to go by.

“I just…” He cleared his throat against the ache that had started in it.  _Come on, Jo_ , he thought desperately.

“Bonnie didn’t say anything to me,” Jo said gently. “But I could read between the lines… she has a lot of stuff to work through. Whatever Bonnie feels for you, Kai, it’s not indifference. That’s a start.”

He laughed, and it was a hollow sound even in his own ears as the hope vanished as quickly as it appeared, popping out of existence like a pricked balloon. “No. Just slow burning hatred.”

“You don’t really believe that. She’d never have come here if she still felt that way. “

“Bonnie Bennett was going to lock herself up in a prison world with me for all eternity because it was the right thing to do. She’s big on self-sacrifice. Believe me, coming here to ask for help wasn’t a big deal.”

_“I guess we’re stuck here. Forever.”_

If he had a choice now between being the all-powerful Praetor, responsible for the wellbeing and prosperity of a coven, which was just a fancy way of describing his job as a glorified babysitter to a bunch of witches who either feared or hated him – and being stuck in an empty world with only Bonnie Bennett for company – he knew which he would choose in a heartbeat.

What was that word again?

Irony.

“At least just let her know that you’re working on this. Let her know that you care about what’s happening to her town,” Jo insisted.

“No, I don’t,” Kai said at once, truthfully. “For all I care, that whole town can sink into the ground with everyone in it.” Everyone except one.

Jo pursed her lips.

“Why can’t you just be happy that I’m not having a psychotic break because my crush doesn’t like me back?” He asked lightly.

“Probably because I’m afraid you  _will_  have a psychotic break over this and my family and I will be collateral damage.”

He recoiled, feeling like if she had punched him.

There was contrition on Jo’s face but it was buried under layers of steely resolve. “There’s a fine line you’re walking here, Kai. You don’t see it but-“

He barked with laughter, cutting her off as he gave himself a mental face-palm. Even after everything they had gone through together this year – from her wedding to the fight with the Council over her twins – Jo would probably always regard him as a ticking bomb. As a monster trapped within a man, waiting for the crack, the fault line it could slip through and escape.

He tried to remind himself that he deserved this – just as her forgiveness was her right, not his, the extent of her trust in him was hers to determine, not his to demand in full.

But yet…

Yet…

If his twin sister, who he regarded as his steadiest ally, who was probably the closest person in his life right now, thought of him that way then what the hell did he expect Bonnie to see when she looked at him?

_And why the Hell did everything keep coming back to her?_

It was enough to make one mad, he thought, feeling the dark emotions beating against his skull like a twisted drum orchestra.

Times like this, the fleeting thought would cross Kai’s mind, that being a heretic won’t be too bad. Not if it would let him switch off his emotions for good.

“Kai…” Jo tried again.

“Oh save it, Sissy,” he taunted. “Once a sociopath, always a sociopath, right? Thankfully, no one’s depending on your two months internship in the Psych ward to pull me from the brink. I happen to know my antidote and even better, it’s right around the corner.” He grinned maliciously. “Good ol’ fashioned violence. Magic-ripping, heart-ripping, blood-splashing-everywhere type of violence.”

Jo blanched and he laughed nastily.

“But don’t you worry. The lucky recipients are not, for a change, your nearest and dearest but two heretics in a quintessential town in Virginia. Shortly to be followed by the rat in our coven that is in league with them. And-“ he raised his hand to hush her next words –“spare me the lecture about being paranoid. One good thing about being a semi-retired, semi-reformed sociopath: when I feel someone’s out to get me, I’m usually right.”

He finished with a smile, and even though the menace in it wasn’t directed at her, his sister still flinched.

_Nice one, loser. Spook the one person on your side._

His heart was like a stone in his chest but he donned the aura of his authority like armor, turned on his heel and went to face his demons.

* * *

An hour after Damon took off, Bonnie was heading to the nursery to find Alaric before he left for the high school. If Damon had any luck with bumping up their flights, then by the time they left Portland, Alaric would still be in school; so Bonnie wanted to say goodbye now.

Her emotions were all over the place. After that wave of exhaustion had flooded her in the room, she was hit with the opposite extreme – tense, wired, out of sorts, like if there was a tight coil inside her, taut with anticipation for something.

Someone.

_“It’s for a good cause.”_

Caroline’s words still haunted her. As did Bonnie’s own memories. She was getting tired of fighting them.

She didn’t know what to do. She only knew that whatever she decided had to be soon.

Alaric was in the nursery, cooing over Martha. The baby sat on the floor, banging her toys together and he was on his stomach, watching her. In the far side of the room, Rachel was asleep in the crib. Bonnie sat down beside him and allowed herself a small sense of smugness at finally figuring out the twins.

He grinned up at Bonnie. “Hey, Bon. Thanks for,” he cleared his throat when one of her eyebrows went up and his face reddened. “Anyway, you should catch some rest now. Daddy’s home,” and he smiled at his daughter who – and there was really no other way to describe it – preened.

Bonnie petted the soft down on the baby’s head – that was the difference between the two. Martha had a few wisps of dark hair and Rachel was bald.

The baby smiled at Bonnie and her heart loosened. “Oh, you precious little thing,” she said softly.

“They’re amazing, right?” Alaric said, his eyes fixed on the baby. “So much work. So little sleep. But they smile at you and everything just melts away.”

Bonnie nodded. He was right. Just by watching the baby, she could feel that coil inside her loosening.

After a few minutes, she looked at Alaric curiously. “Don’t you have to be at work in a couple of hours?”

“Yeah, but I do this all the time. She’ll be asleep in a little while. I’ll crash for half an hour and then I’ll be good to go.” He peered at her. “Are you OK?”

“Somebody else was murdered.”

His face fell. “Oh no. I’m so sorry, Bonnie. Was it someone you knew?”

 _It was someone somebody knew,_ she wanted to retort but didn’t. She couldn’t really blame him. That had also been her first concern when she called Matt back that morning.

“Matt said the cops identified her with the contents of her purse. Her name is Judith Stewart. 63. Her address is somewhere in Nevada State. No one has a clue what she was doing near Mystic Falls.” Alaric’s frown surprised her. “Do you know this person?”

“I-I’m not sure. The name sounds familiar.”

She waited but after a while, he just shrugged. “I’ll check my records. If I find anything, I’ll call you from school.”

“We’re going to leave today. As soon as possible.” At the look of disappointment on his face, she smiled ruefully, “Sorry. Wish we could have stayed longer but -“ she sighed heavily.

“Yeah, I know.” He said, smiling back. “It’s been nice having you guys around. I don’t just mean because you gave Jo and I a night out,” he added and they both laughed a little. “I miss Mystic Falls sometimes. It wasn’t all bad, was it?”

Bonnie gave him a look.

He laughed. “Yeah, it probably was.”

“You have a lovely family, Alaric,” she said, almost scolding.

He looked at her in amazement. “I know that. Come on, Bonnie, do you think I’d trade a minute of this for anything from Mystic Falls?”

She shrugged, unconvinced. The town had its charm. She had been away for almost a year and it had felt like coming home. 

If home was a graveyard, that is.

“I mean, who would have thought, right?” Alaric continued. “Three strikes. My first wife would rather be dead than be married to me. Literally. The next woman I fell in love with was murdered.” His face twisted and so did Bonnie’s, at the memory of Aunt Jenna. “Then the third woman, well we were almost something, but she ran off. I still tell Jo that Meredith’s the smartest woman I ever dated, and that includes her.”

Bonnie laughed.

“Now, look at me. A beautiful, amazing wife. A doctor, for that matter.” He chuckled. “My old mom would have been so proud. Two beautiful little girls,” he stroked Martha’s hair.

Bonnie felt her eyes tear up a little.

“I even have a job. As a respectable high school teacher in a town where it’s somebody else’s job to keep the supernaturals in check for a change. Heck, I’d like to see the suicidal vampire or werewolf or Original that would try to take on the Geminis in their home-front. You did that for me, Bonnie.”

Her face burned. “Oh my goodness, not again!”

“You did this,” Alaric insisted. “You. And Kai.”

And just like that, the tension had coiled back up inside her. The indulgent smile on her face froze.

“Alaric…”

“The heretics wanted to murder Jo first, you know. No idea why. Maybe because she was the most vulnerable person there and the easiest to kill. Maybe because she was the center of attention and they wanted to start their massacre with a big bang. Who knows? But if Kai hadn’t got between her and that knife, she’d be dead, and I’d have lost three people that night.”

Bonnie said nothing.

Alaric glanced at her. “People change, Bonnie. Damon turned my first wife into a vampire. Years later, he gave up his chance to live so that I could.”

“That’s different,” Bonnie muttered.

Alaric cocked his head, like if he was thinking. “I don’t see how it is.”

“It just is.” She took a deep breath. “Jo told you, didn’t she?”

She didn’t say about what. She didn’t have to.

For a moment though, Alaric looked uneasy, like if he was thinking of feigning ignorance. But her eyes stayed sharp on his face, and he bowed his head.

“Actually, Kai did.”

She started. “What?”

“A month before the twins were born, we had a false alarm. Jo and the babies, I mean. I rushed her to the hospital, thinking they were about to come. The nurses were all cool and clinical and not appreciating the situation at all. So, I probably threw a little tantrum.”

“A tantrum?”

“Yeah. I got thrown out of the delivery room.” He made a face when Bonnie snickered. “Luckily, we had called Kai and he got to run interference between me and Jo. I was out of my mind with worry. Jo didn’t have the easiest time with the coven when we got here. And the old witches used to say things about the babies.”

“What kind of things?” Bonnie wondered, remembering Liv’s talk from earlier.

Alaric shrugged. “Mostly about Jo not being a witch anymore and how she’ll have a difficult time because of her age and lack of magic. The doctors said the same about the age part.  _Jo_  said the same about the age part. Then there was some talk in the coven about taking the kids from us so that they could be raised in a proper magical home.” At Bonnie’s alarmed look, he shook his head. “Kai shut that down at once.”

She looked away from him and stared fixedly at Martha. The baby was on her stomach, now, kicking with her legs.

Alaric put a bright toy just a little out of the girl’s reach.

“He helped calm me down while we were waiting. And we got talking. We aren’t close or anything but…you know, family is family. We both care about Jo, about the twins. I told him about Isobel. He told me about you. Now that I think about it, he was probably a little tipsy.”

Bonnie felt her hands tighten into fists. Her heart was pounding. “He had no right.”

“He’d never told anyone else before. I don’t think he even told Jo. She sort of figured it out on her own, twin-style.”

Bonnie stood up abruptly and would have walked away but Alaric reached for her.

“Bonnie.”

“It was nothing,” she snapped. “A moment of …  _madness_. Magic. Adrenaline. I was half out of my mind. It could have been with anyone, OK? It just happened to be him and I needed… It meant nothing to me. Except for wishing it never happened because apparently that’s why he’s refusing to help us now,” she said, bitterly.

“Kai would never do that.”

“Won’t he?” she cried. “You don’t know him, Alaric. You don’t know how he was before his…” She clapped her hands together. “Mergeance Personality Transplant. He was a monster.”

Martha gurgled then, distracting both of them. She had reached the toy. Alaric placed another one just a little out of her way. The baby gave him what Bonnie almost swore was an “Are you kidding me?” glare.

“Come on kiddo, you can do it,” he murmured.

Bonnie sighed. “Look, Alaric, can we please just not talk-“

“Was, Bonnie.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“You said  _was_. Your words: ‘Kai was a monster.’ So you do realize that he’s not the same guy.”

“I did… I don’t…” She tripped over her words and Alaric looked at her knowingly.

 _Semantics!_  She thought. She knew what she meant, what she felt.

Anger and hurt were rising in her again.

But Alaric was already going on:

“And you’re wrong, you know, about me not knowing who he was. I did meet the old Kai. I even put a gun to his head. All I had to do was pull the trigger but Jo stopped me. Not because she thought he was worth saving though. Because she thought she could merge with him and beat him, and spare Liv and Luke.”

Alaric sighed. “And maybe she would have won and we’d be telling a different story now. A better one. Or  _maybe something worse_.”

He gave her a pointed look.

“But… that’s not what happened. Luke merged with Kai. And Kai saved your life. And Jo’s . And mine. And a lot of other people at our wedding. And even more people since then. He’s done so much good for this coven, and the supernatural world in turn. There comes a point when-“

“Don’t, Alaric,” Bonnie warned, her voice a harsh whisper because of the baby. “Don’t you dare tell me when I have to trust Kai Parker or anyone else who’s ever hurt me. Don’t. You. Dare.”

“I don’t,” he said softly, and his eyes were sad. “But haven’t you already? Didn’t you have to for what happened between you two… to have happened in the first place?”

“No, I didn’t –“

“Pssst.”

They turned to see Liv standing by the door. Her face was tense, her blue eyes wary.

“The Praetor’s downstairs.” Her voice was cold. “You’ve been summoned.”

* * *

**May 2013**

_Mystic Falls_

On the night of his sister’s wedding, when a heretic bit him, Kai screamed not so much from the pain but from the memory.

_Teeth. So much teeth. His magic. His blood. How much do they need? When will this stop?_

_Why can’t he just die?_

It was sheer reflexive power that shot out of his head and into his attacker’s. He felt more than he heard the pop of a skull imploding and then the gooey mess of heretic brains splattered on the back of his suit.

He fell to his knees, bile rising in his throat and he wanted nothing more than to hurl but he was already raising his hands up to push back Iceman and Gingerdum who had apparently crawled out of the literal hole they came from and were about to rush at him again; and Kai started laughing, half-hysterically, because it was more than ridiculous, just how badly his careful plans had screwed up…

Then hexes flew above his head, and both of them hit the heretics inches from his face. Blondie and Ginger shattered into dust and smoke.

A healing spell hit him in the back and a firm grip was pulling him to his feet. He turned to throw a grateful grin at the witch that had joined in the fight.

And took his father’s punch full in the face.

Kai reeled, but not before his magic flared out defensively and smote his father in the stomach. Joshua doubled over, coughing out blood while Kai hesitated, his hand up, his magic barely leashed and his head whirling in confusion. It was barely a few seconds of momentary pause, while the battle whirled around them, but it seemed to last forever.

Finally, Joshua lifted his head, and shouted through his blood-stained lips. “This isn’t about your stupid pride or petty revenge! You wanted this! You fought for it! You murdered your siblings for it! I locked you up in that Prison because I didn’t know how to kill you and yet you found your way back and stole it! Well you got it. Now. do. the. damn. job.” With each angry exclamation, he stood a little straighter, came a little closer. By the end, he was standing right in front of Kai and he shoved his son.

Kai shoved him back, both fists up as he glared at his father, his heart pounding with hatred.

Joshua held his ground and glared right back, his eyes brimming with contempt.

“You want to be Praetor? This is what it takes to be Praetor, Malachai. Putting your pride and your vainglory aside to  _survive_  for the coven.  _Look around you._  This is happening because you forgot your most important job.  _Putting the coven first_. Now get out of here so I can clean up your mess the way I did eighteen years ago.”

He shouldered past his son and marched off.

Kai swallowed hard as he turned to watch as his father walked into the storm of smoke and magic.


	7. i put a hex on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...It may not look like it to your righteous mind but I'm doing you a favour..."

* * *

**May 2013**

_“You’ll get it back. It may not look like it to your righteous mind but I’m doing you a favour.Consider this a freebie.”_

The morning after Jo’s wedding, Bonnie woke with those words echoing in her head. It was warm but under the thick blankets, she had shivered through the night. She stared blankly at the chandelier above her, then at the large window across the room with fancy curtains. The mosaic floor was tastefully dotted with expensive furniture.

For a long moment, she had no idea where she was and panic immediately filled her. She was cold in a way that meant only one thing – she had lost her magic. The nightmare of 1994, and all the times she was vulnerable because she had no power, threatened to consume her.

Then the moment passed; her fright subsided as the memories came back, first slowly like a trickling stream then crashing like a waterfall. The heretics’ ambush. The wedding. The fight. Kai Parker porting her out of it against her will.

Taking away her magic for ‘her own good’.

Anger flared up inside Bonnie and she sprang up at once. 

Last night, after being dumped semi-conscious in this hotel suite, Bonnie had barely given herself a moment to recover, before she had exhausted herself even more trying to find an exit. But every one – the window, the door opening out to the corridor and the connecting door leading to the other room in the suite – had been warded shut. The same spells that kept the doors and windows barricaded had also prevented her from finding a phone or any other form of communication. Of course, he had taken her phone from her, too.

The spells were still active as she quickly confirmed now, fury building up inside her.

He had kidnapped her. Again. He had stolen her magic. Again.

She was cold. Cold and mad. Mad and scared. Because it must have been all over by now – the fight – and she had no idea what had happened. Who had lived. Who had died. And there was only one person to blame for that.

Where the Hell was Kai Parker?

Bonnie was spoiling for a fight and if he were to appear before her right now, she wouldn’t need magic to kill him.She’d just gut him with the first sharp thing she could lay her hands on.

She spun around to find one and that was when she saw it. Lying on the corner of her bed, an incongruous rose beside it, was – of all things – a familiar one-eyed teddy bear.

Glowing through its fur, visible through her witch vision, was a vibrant aura that she knew very well. 

Tentatively, she touched Ms. Cuddles, wondering if this was a trap.

But it was Bonnie’s magic alright, warm and smouldering out of the bear’s fur. She had no way of telling, especially now with so little magic left inside her but the power in the bear felt intact, full and untapped.

Kai had kept his word.

Relief poured through her, sharp and unexpected; and her eyes filled with tears. She clutched the bear, cuddling it close and felt the heat from her power seep through her skin, chasing away the coldness that her magicless aura had tormented her with all night long.

It took Bonnie a moment to recollect the incantation; at first she struggled to say the words that she used to draw out her ancestor’s magic from a rock in another world. But the second time they came easier, and with each repetition the words flowed faster, and she knew the moment the magic in the bear started pouring into her body.

It was nothing like drawing out magic from a long-dead ancestor. This was  _Bonnie’s_  own magic and it filled her up like a flood filling up a crater. She cried out in half-pain, half-pleasure as her body lit up from within and through fading eyes, she could see her own veins glowing under her skin. The magic-infused blood seemed to fill up her vision until all that she could see was white.

Then nothing.

When she opened her eyes again, the shadows in the room had changed. She sat up slowly, and stared at her arms. There was still a faint glow through her skin, barely visible with normal sight but nothing a very thorough day at the beauty spa wouldn’t have caused. She smiled. 

Her body ached though, her joints stiff and painful, like if she hadn’t moved in days not hours.The urge to close her eyes to sleep it off was so overwhelming that for a moment, she didn’t care where she was or who had put her there.

Then she heard it again.  _Felt_ it again. What she now realised must have broken through her deep slumber and forced her to wake.

A shout of pain.

And the crackling in the air that was strong magic being invoked.

She got up at once, and immediately felt dizzy. She had to hold onto the headboard to steady herself. The sense of active magic was pressing down on her – thick and heavy in the air like black floating ropes. Powerful spellwork. And it was coming from close by. She closed her eyes and let her senses guide her, stumbling through the room as she dragged her still tired body along. Her nose bumped into something flat and hard and she opened her eyes.

She had walked across the room, and now she was standing in front of the suite’s connecting door. It had been warded before but now it yielded to the press of her hand.

The door was already ajar when she checked herself.

What was she doing?

She had her magic back. Whatever wards were still up would be simple enough to break through. She could go –  _should_  go right away. Before, for whatever new inane, insane reason, Kai tried to stop her. Because even though she had only been exposed to his magic a few times, she recognized whose spellwork hung heavy in the air. It was his and he was on the other side of this door. 

If Bonnie left now, she could get a phone to call a cab and her friends and find out what happened at Jo’s wedding. If she stayed here and he caught her, heaven knows what would happen. He had given her back her magic but that meant nothing. Bonnie had learnt the hard way that having magic was no defence against a syphon.

She was turning on her heel when she heard it again. The sound of a muffled shout.

And now she could feel it as well. Pain. Enormous and consuming, mingled with the threads of magic.

She didn’t hesitate. She pushed open the door.

And stopped in her tracks.

Kai was in the room, just as she had expected. What she hadn’t expected was the sight of him. He looked like if he had been thrown out of a plane and then hit by a bus. He stood before what looked like a reading desk, his hands flat on the surface, and she could tell from the tension in his biceps that he was barely holding himself upright. All that was left of his wedding tuxedo were black pants that hung in shreds. His torso was streaked with blood, mud and – and she gagged a little – a cauterised stab wound on his lower torso and two still-open slashes across his stomach.Underneath all this, lines of black tattoos crisscrossed his skin, from his throat, across his chest and down his arms to the tips of his fingers. There were two streaks of caked blood from his temple to his chin, his hair was parted in an unusual manner and when he looked up at her as she stepped in, she could see his eyes. 

His eyes were red, their hollows veined.

She backed away in horror.

“Why are you still here?” he asked. The words came out slowly, painfully like if they were torn out of him – or like if he was speaking with a mouth filled with fangs. 

“I don’t…”  _know,_ she wanted to say. Hovering in front of him were three rings, similar to the power rings he usually wore. They were rotating in mid-air, each in a different axis, their colours changing too rapidly for her to ascertain a pattern. A quick glance confirmed that, yes, three rings were missing from his fingers. The glance became longer when she noticed the familiar knife between his hands; its once-shiny blade was now black and shiny, making it almost invisible on the black desk. Then she really took in his hands and she gasped in shock.

What she had thought were tattoos were actually his veins, pulsing with the black blood that showed through his skin. They ran across his entire body, every part that she could see.

Not black blood, Bonnie realized, horror filling her. Black magic.

“What happened to you?” She whispered.

“Get. Out.”

Kai’s voice was strangled and even as she watched, he jerked his head sharply, involuntarily and bit back a groan.

She took a step forward, too shocked by what she was seeing to even remember her own tiredness.

His eyes turned back to her, and she could see the red recede to give way to the gray-blue. “Your magic. The bear,” he croaked.

“I found it,” she whispered and took another step forward. The pain rolling out of him was unbearable. She had no idea how he was still able to stand.

As if on cue, he let out another shout and collapsed on his knees.

“Kai!”

_“Leave!”_

But she had rushed forward and now she stood before him, the desk the only thing separating them. He was pulling himself slowly to his feet, the muscles in his shoulder bunching as the black veins throbbed furiously. She reached out to help him and he caught her hand, clamping around her wrist like a vice.

The angry magic rushed to his palm and she could  _feel_  it try to jump from his skin into hers. She could also feel the Herculean effort he was using to keep it leashed to him.

“I. Said. Get. Out.” His eyes were red again, and the veined hollows had deepened.

She swallowed. “I can help you,” and the words came out before she had made the decision in her head. But she didn’t take them back. She had seen this before, recognised a bit of what was happening to him. She could help him.

And she wanted to.

His grip on her wrist tightened painfully, black magic stabbing greedily at her own aura, and his eyes were boring into her with an intensity that was just as painful.

 _“Leave,”_  he roared, and his knees buckled again, her hand slipping out of his grip.

Bonnie was around the table in a flash, her hands reaching for but not quite touching him.She was looking straight down at his head and she almost cried out at what she saw. What she had thought was an odd part in his hair was actually a jagged line running from his crown to his nape where his hair had been  _ripped out_  to reveal the pulsing vein beneath. The strands of hair on either side of the line were clotted with blood. Even as she watched, fresh plasma started dripping out of the vein and down his face.

Her stomach churned and she quickly glanced away, her gaze landing on the rings suspended in front of him. One had stopped rotating and was hovering, a thick dark cloud gathering rapidly around it like a dirty ball of wool.

“Let me help you, Kai!” she shouted at him.

He raised his head up then, and looked at her. The trickle of blood had run down an eye, so it looked like he was weeping red tears. His eyes were changing from red to blue to red so rapidly that they appeared to have turned violet.

“Bonnie…” He whispered her name and something else.

She had to lean forward to hear him.

“ _Help me_.”

He collapsed.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

When Bonnie got to the door that led into the kitchen, she hesitated and did a quick once over at her outfit. Straight jeans and a sleeveless shirt she could throw a jacket over during the coming trip and change in weather. More practical than glamorous – the shirt didn’t even have an interesting neckline. Her hand went to her hair and, quickly, before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled off her scrunchie and shook her head, letting her hair fall loose over her shoulders.

Then, putting a lid on the voice in her head that had started a scoffing tirade, she put her hand on the knob of the door and walked in.

Of course, her eyes went immediately to the man standing across the room.

He was dressed in a short black jacket, open over the white shirt and black jeans beneath. He had poured himself a glass of orange juice and stood by the window, drinking. His cuffs were turned up, and she could see his rings, and the leather strap on his left wrist. He looked like someone Bonnie would run into on campus, not the feared leader of an ancient coven.

Until you looked at his eyes, of course. Even in the Prison World, there had always been something about his eyes that gave him away and that put her on her guard right from the first.

He turned when she stepped in, and she caught a glimpse of stormy blues, then he turned fully, so that his back was to the window and his face was in shadow. He stood rigidly, his shoulders tight and his hand around the glass white-knuckled. She could still feel the weight of his gaze on her face. It felt angry.

Bonnie’s heart skipped a beat. Something was wrong.

“My name is Quentin Parrish. I sit on the Council. It’s an honour to meet you, Bonnie Bennett. Your family is held in great esteem.”

The voice pulled her out of her stare and it was only then that she registered the other people in the room – Damon, leaning against the counter with his daily dose of bourbon, and a familiar fair-haired man standing beside her, vying for her attention.

Mr. Asshat from the Council.

Bonnie stared at him, then turned to Kai.

“What’s going on? Have you changed your mind?” She asked, hopefully.

“If I may explain…” It was Mr Asshat –  _Quentin Parrish_  that spoke. Kai only stood silently by the window.

Bonnie dragged her attention, unwillingly to the man. It was then she noticed that he had offered her his hand.

She almost didn’t take it. “We met yesterday. You didn’t act like you were particularly honoured then.”

Damon snorted into his bourbon.

Quentin Parrish shot him a cold glare, before turning back to Bonnie. “Yesterday, I was serving on the Council and if my attitude was a bit hostile, please understand that I was only doing my job.” He spoke formally.

“A bit?” Bonnie echoed.

He gave her a stiff smile. “Please believe that I genuinely was not aware that you participated in the Battle. After the hearing, the P…  _former_  Praetor briefed me of some of your activities. There are many witches from great families who live off on the good name of their ancestors while applying nothing of themselves. I wrongfully assumed you to be of such a character. Allow me to now apologise and to express my sincere admiration for you, personally.”

This time Damon guffawed out loud. Bonnie sneaked a glance at Kai but he still said nothing, only drilled holes into her face with his eyes.

By now Quentin was looking at Damon with open hostility. “Is there anything you would like to say to me, Vampire?”

Damon put down his glass, the mirth in his eyes morphing into something more sinister. “You tell me. Care to step outside for a little chat?”

“No,” Bonnie snapped and gave him a warning frown. She turned back to Quentin. “Please why are you here?” The ‘please’ took some effort but she felt she needed it to counteract Damon’s behaviour. “Will your coven help us then?” Her eyes sought out Kai again, wishing she could see his face well enough to read his expression.

Quentin stiffened as he faced her. “I will be coming to Mystic Falls to inspect your heretic dilemma. We will need to consult on occasion. I hope that we will be able to do so effectively.” At the last sentence, he gave Damon a pointed glare.

Damon waggled his eyebrows and grinned back. Bonnie was sure that it was only the wards in the Saltzmans’s house that stopped him from dropping his fangs. 

“So … you are going to help us kill the heretics?” she persisted, confused. “I thought that only the Praetor,” she glanced again at Kai and felt a stab of irritation at the man, “could do this.” Why did he just stand there, silently watching and probably judging her?

“I can only inform you that our interests appear to have aligned. Beyond that, I have divulged all that I am at liberty to say. Here is my card.”

Bonnie took it. It was ordinary-looking, with just his name and a phone number. Then she flipped the back, and saw the indentation of the Gemini symbol moving through the paper. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he continued. “I need to organize my logistics. Praetor, will you be coming?”

“I have business with my family,” Kai said, speaking for the first time since Bonnie entered the kitchen.

The sound of his voice, deep and low infuriated Bonnie in more ways than one.

“Extend my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Saltzman, and Ms. Parker. Once again, Ms. Bennett, it was an honour.”

With a stiff nod to Damon, and a low bow to Bonnie, Quentin Parrish turned on his heel and briskly left the Saltzmans’ house.

Damon poured himself another shot.“If that Witch Street stiff steps into my town, I will tie him up with a red bow and hand-deliver him to the heretics myself,” he announced.

“Noted,” Kai deadpanned, his gaze finally shifting from Bonnie. “I highlighted your tendencies to stab your allies in the back when I gave Quentin my Mystic Falls 101 cheat sheets.”

Damon sneered. “Just so we’re clear.” He strode to Kai and waved his glass at his face. “What the heck are you up to, Kai?”

Bonnie tensed, ready to intervene. “Damon.”

Kai said nothing, just looked at the other man with a bored expression on his face as he drained his glass.

“Last year, you lay down the law on Mystic Falls like some Clint Eastwood wannabe in an old B-rated Western, and the only reason why I don’t rip your throat out for that is because hey, it’s my town, too. I don’t need some stuffed up prick from Portland of all places to tell me to protect it. Then now, the first time we ever come to you for backup, you can’t move your ass to help.”

Bonnie started. What was this about?

Damon poked Kai with an index finger.“And now this? One minute you’re hanging us out to dry. Next you’re sending your lackey to spy on us.”

“First. Quentin doesn’t like me. Don’t call him my lackey to his face. It’ll hurt his feelings. Second. Piece of advice: you’re not supposed to introduce your spies to your intended targets. It sort of defeats the purpose. Third. The next time that finger touches me, you’re going to lose it.”

Damon growled and drew back his fist.

The glass in Kai’s hand vibrated with the slightest, faintest tingle.

Bonnie was between them in an instant, her hand on Damon’s wrist. “Stop it.”

He yanked his fist back and glared at her.

“Remind me again why we needed this jerk’s help?”

“Mmm…” Kai murmured and she realized with a slight shock, that he was near enough for her to feel his warmth on her back. “Let me see. The last time you faced a bunch of heretics, you hightailed it faster than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. If I were a betting man – actually, I am a betting man …”

Bonnie covered her face with her hands, pressing her palms into her eyes and groaned until he stopped talking.

“Damon, can you give us a moment please?” She asked quietly.

She dropped her hands to see Damon looking at her like if he thought she was insane.

“Er… let me think. No.”

“Please, Damon,” she hissed.

He glared at her with narrowed eyes. Then he shot Kai a final poisonous look. “Watch yourself around her.” Then he gave Bonnie a slightly less menacing one. “Yell if you need help.”

Kai snorted.

Damon growled and grabbed the whole bottle on his way out. The door slammed loudly behind him.

Bonnie whirled round to face Kai.

He was near, barely inches from her and she instinctively took a step back.

He raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. He had gone back to the same brooding, almost angry stance that he had worn when she first entered the kitchen. Once again, she was filled with the sense that something – she, to be exact – had ticked him off. 

Still, there was something she needed to know first. “What did Damon mean about you laying down the law on Mystic Falls?”

He took his time answering. She was about to snap a repeat of the question, when he finally drawled, “That’s between me and Damon, don’t you think?”

“Really? That’s your response.”

This time, he didn’t deign to reply.

Bonnie bristled. “Fine, then. What did Asshat mean when he said our interests have aligned? Why is he really coming to Mystic Falls?”

His mouth twitched. “Asshat?”

She shrugged. “Quentin Whathisname.”

He smirked a little.“He is a bit of that, isn’t he?”

“Answer my question, Kai.”

His eyebrow went up even higher. “You do like ordering me around, don’t you, Bonnie?” He brushed past her, his jacket rubbing against the bare skin of her arm and she stifled a gasp at the contact. “It was the Council’s recommendation. Last night’s casualty caused them to rethink their position.”

He stopped at the counter, put down his glass, and turned to her. His eyes were fiery. “This is not some special favour I’ve done for you because you have me wrapped around your little finger.”

Her mouth fell open. “What. No, I don-”

“Really?” he snarled. “Wasn’t that the whole point of you waltzing in here to Portland and demanding to speak to the leader of the coven? Think you have me on some sort of leash?”

Bonnie felt her face burn and then her own anger flared up. “Where the Hell is this coming from? I asked for your help and you said no. You don’t owe me anything, remember? You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

A myriad of expressions flitted across his face, too fast for her to catch. It finally settled on a scowl as he muttered, “You and I both know that’s not completely true.”

Her ire left and bewilderment took its place. With the latter was also relief because at least she could begin to understand why he seemed so angry – or rather, angrier than usual. But just what the Hell did he mean by that? What was going on here? One minute he was yelling at her because of this non-existent hold she had on him and now he was saying…

What exactly was Kai saying?

That they were  _not_ even? That he owed her one favour?

Or that she  _did_  have him wrapped around her finger?

Bonnie stared at his brooding form.

Did she?

In her confusion, she could only manage to shoot back weakly, “Wanna tally?”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“I have-” he started just as she said, “I know-”

They both paused. Bonnie licked her lips nervously and his eyes went to her mouth at once. And stayed there.

Her own mouth went dry.

_“You’re better off talking to Kai yourself. Or maybe more than just talking_ _…_ _”_

“You first,” he said slowly, his half-lidded eyes still on her mouth. The scowl remained on his face but there was something else there too.

Hunger.

Bonnie swallowed. She was still standing by the window and he was half way across the kitchen and the irrational thought gripped her that they were too far apart.

_For what, exactly?_

The voice in her head was Caroline’s.

Without stopping to think, she walked across to him.

He stood still, his eyes not once lifting from her as she approached him. It struck her then that the first time she had come this close to him, had been in the 1994 prison world, when he had tricked or tested her – she still didn’t know which – to find the Ascendant. She had placed her hand right on his jacket, a full hand span from the pocket where the device was, and felt the thrumming of his heart beneath; and she wasn’t sure what had been the stronger force – the magic of the locator spell or her own desire to touch him.

She could have easily told him and Damon where the Ascendant was, and called Kai out on his trick.

But Bonnie had touched him because she had wanted to. Their eyes had locked, magic swirling around them and she had felt it for the first time – that dual sensation of attraction and repulsion. Wanting to be as close to him as possible. And wanting to be as far away from him as possible.

She had told Damon then that there was something not quite right about Kai Parker. But the truth had been – and still was – more complicated than that.

There was something not quite right about the way Kai Parker made her feel.

Now, she stopped right in his space; and just like that first time, she was close enough to stretch her hand and touch his chest. She stared at it, now, at its rapid rise and fall under his white T-shirt. Then she took a step even nearer.

“Bonnie,” he said, his voice low and resonating with something deep inside her. It sounded like a warning, and like a plea.

She looked up at his face, and quickly looked away, her eyes stopping to rest on his tense jaw, unable to hold that burning, hungry gaze a moment longer.

She swallowed again. “I know how you killed the heretics,” she said softly.

He started. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it clearly wasn’t that. “Do you now?” he returned quickly, guardedly.

“It was something someone… something I heard yesterday that tipped me off.” Bonnie decided not to mention Liv for his sister’s sake. “Then I remembered, your rings.” She glanced at them now and because of what she was about to say next, she kept her eyes on them. “I remembered what happened the day after Jo’s wedding, too.”

She didn’t think it was possible, but his body became even tenser than it already was.

It was a few seconds before Kai spoke. They felt like eons. “I thought we were supposed to be pretending that day never happened,” he said and his voice was very, very low.

She licked her lips, feeling his gaze heavy on her and feeling like a coward because she couldn’t bring herself to meet it.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing that a lot,” she said and she swallowed back a sudden burst of inappropriate, slightly hysterical laughter. “And that’s why it took me so long to figure it out. What happened that night.”

“Which night, Bonnie? My sister’s wedding? Or the one after?” Impossibly, his voice went even deeper. “Both of them were equally memorable.”

Heat washed over her, from the top of her head, through her lungs, to settle somewhere in her core. He was deliberately trying to derail the conversation. But that didn’t stop his words from affecting her.

She shook her head to clear the haze that had filled it and pressed on stubbornly. “They can’t be killed as heretics because they can’t  _cross-over_  as heretics. Part servant of nature and part abomination of nature, in the end, heretics are neither and nature will not…  _cannot_ let them cross over.” Her lips twisted with wry bitterness. “You’re talking to the resident expert of crossing overs. I should know.” Another part of her life that she had spent the better part of the year putting behind her.

He stayed silent, but she heard the slightest shift in his breath. She bit back a smug grin; she was close.

“They couldn’t be killed. Their very ‘destruction’ would release power that they would reabsorb, and rejuvenate with. Like using magic against them, it just made them stronger. So you consumed their necromancy, you  _unmade_  them, until they were syphons. Dead syphons.”

“Too bad you used up the Cure, right?” he asked, dismissively. But when she glanced up, his dark eyes were glinting with something like – her heart fluttered–admiration.

“I don’t think the Cure could work. It’s still magic. It’s still something they can feed on. But you…” She bit her lip; and watched as his eyes, almost black now, went to her mouth. “You’re a syphon. Probably the only one alive right now who’s not already a heretic. But Kai,” she raised her chin, “I took Qetsiya’s magic from that rock. If you can just teach me-“

She bit back a shriek as his hands clamped around her upper arms and yanked her forward, her hips hitting his own. Her hands fell on his chest reflexively. Bonnie’s magic snapped to her fingers at once, ready to strike back but he just held her, glowering down at her, his jaw ticking furiously.

He spat out each word like bullets from a gun. “Qetsiya was your ancestor. Your blood and your magic come from her.Drawing from her magic compared to drawing from, say, Liv is like swimming in the kiddie pool compared to swimming in the deep end of an Olympic sized pool.”

“I’m an excellent swimmer,” Bonnie retorted, “and a trained lifeguard to boot.”

His eyes narrowed and his rings dug into her bare skin as his grip tightened. He shook her, slightly but enough that her teeth rattled. “And comparing that to drawing from a heretic would be like swimming in the ocean. In the middle of a storm. With  _sharks_.”

Bonnie lifted her chin defiantly.

Kai laughed, an incredulous barking laughter. “You’re crazy enough to try this.” And he let her go. She stumbled back, grabbing onto the counter for support.

He looked away from her, then looked back, his hands raking down the sides of his face as he scoffed. “Bonnie…”

“Throw me a life jacket, Kai,” she countered. “If you’re so worried about me, come with me to Mystic Falls and we’ll do it together. I can help you. Like the last time, but better-”

“…the last time…” he repeated, his hands falling as he looked at her.

Those three short words were loaded with forbidden memories. He wasn’t making a statement. He was asking a question.

Bonnie licked her lips, saw his gaze go to her mouth again. It seemed like a kind of reflex of his. “Yes,” she whispered and she was stepping into his space again.  _Oh god, was she really doing this_? The urge to push him away and the urge to pull him to her… it was the latter that was winning now.

His Adam’s apple bobbed jerkily. There was a desperate longing in his eyes that would have frightened her if she wasn’t feeling the exact same thing right now. 

“No.”

It took a moment for her to understand what he said. Then she drew back sharply.

“W-what?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, the longing was still there. But it was also mixed with fury. “You really think …” He bit off what he must have been about to say. “I said No, Bonnie. No.  _Non. Nada. Niente._  NO. You can stop trying to manipulate me right now.”

Blood rushed to her face. “I… I’m not,” she lied.

Kai scoffed again, walked away from her in short angry steps, then turned and marched right up to her. She stepped back in alarm. He looked angry enough to bite.

“You regretted what happened. You made that oh so abundantly clear. A moment of madness, you said. But dangling yourself in front of me, using how I feel…?” He broke off, and his whole body was practically sparking with fury.

She wrapped her bare arms around her body, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

“And for what?” he continued, his voice lethal. “Why are you even involved in this? Weren’t you supposed to have closed shop in that town?”

She stared. “How did you know…?”

“Oh, let me guess. Damon messed up his hair grappling with a heretic and he called 911 Paramagical – you. So you come rushing back to save the box of tools that you call friends? The same besties that ran off and left you behind at the first sign of trouble at my sister’s wedding?”

Bonnie recoiled from the viciousness of his words. “They didn’t even know I was there. If they had-”

“They’d what? Stay and fight? For you? Aren’t these the same guys who couldn’t take a timeout from their 90210 drama long enough to figure out a way to free you from prison?”

With each word he spoke, her hackles rose higher. By the time he was done, her fists were clenching and unclenching at her sides as she imagined using a hex to sew that spiteful mouth shut. “I’m not doing this for them. I’d have thought you of all people would realize that. But hey, I forgot who I was talking to. You don’t feel even the iota of responsibility for this, do you?”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “Believe me, I do, Bonnie. I am full aware of the role I played in starting this. So if you’re asking if I learnt the hard way not to throw away my good judgment for your sake, then the answer is yes.”

Despite her own anger, she flinched. “So you’re putting this all on me? How convenient,” she asked hoarsely.

She had thought he couldn’t get more furious; she was wrong. The pots hanging above rattled as his face darkened. “That. is. just. it. This has  _nothing_  to do with you! It never did. Lily Salvatore. The heretics. My coven.  _It was never your fight, Bonnie._  I learnt my own lesson. When will you? How long are you going to keep throwing yourself into battles that aren’t your own, to save people who won’t do the same for you?”

Oh, that hit. That hit hard. Bile rose in her throat as her own angry magic added to his. “Shut your mouth! You don’t know a damn thing about my friends or me.”

“Oh yes, I forgot who I was talking to. Loyal Bonnie. Faithful to the end,” he said, sneering.“Do you get off on sacrificing yourself, Bonnie?”

“Go to hell, Kai!” She shoved past him to walk out of the kitchen. There was absolutely zero reason for her to stand here and listen to him insulting her. But before she reached the door, he was there between it and her.

“You’re not going to try to siphon magic from the heretics.” It was an order.

Bonnie saw red. “Who the hell are you to tell me what I can or cannot do?” She yelled.

“The person who just did. The person who can take your magic away if he doesn’t like what you do with it.”

“You won’t dare!” Real fear gripped her at that.

“Try me,” he said grimly.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to stay calm and not give into the overpowering urge to launch herself at him and strangle him with her bare hands.

“You think I let my friends use me,” she hissed. “Fine. You don’t want to help me.  _Fine_. But don’t you  _dare_  get in my way, Kai.”

“Not until you promise you won’t do this.”

Bonnie chuckled nastily at that. “All bets are off, remember?” She raised her hand and silently  _Motused_ him out of her way. He slid across the wall, and stumbled into Jo’s dishwasher.

Her left hand was on the knob when he grabbed her by the arms and spun her towards him, and before she could blink, she was pinned between him and the door.Her hands went up at once, shoving against him with her magic but he was ready this time and deflected it without blinking, sending it fizzling into the space between them.

“What the hell, Kai?”

He cracked his neck and glared at her. She tried to shove past him, then tried to kick past him; after a few moments of struggling while he watched her, holding her almost effortlessly against the door with a bored expression on his face, she leaned back, gasping.

“You let me go now or I swear-”

“What’s your dominant hand?”

Bonnie bit back on the curse she was about to hurl at him. “W-what?”

“Your dominant hand,” he said slowly as if he was talking to a child. “The hand you use to cast and write.”

The question was so mundane, his tone so patronizingly normal that she was thrown for a loop.

“I-I don’t have one,” Bonnie stammered. “I’m ambidextrous.”

Incongruously, something like a smile flitted across his face. “Figures. I could never tell.”

The meaning behind the words – that Kai had studied her and tried to know this – didn’t escape her. It threw her even more off balance than she already was and that proved unfortunate for her.

His left hand – the one holding her right shoulder in place, unclenched a little, just enough for it to run down the length of her arm, his palm cupping around her limb and sending goosebumps in their wake until he was holding her right hand.

She gaped at him in confusion. What was he doing? She could probably have pushed him away then, without magic. But she was frozen at the spot, her heart pounding as he lifted their hands to chest level, lining their fingers up against each other, his rings pressing into the edges of her palm. Then he let go of her other arm so that he could use his free hand to untie the leather strap on his left wrist.

His skin underneath where the strap had lain looked distinctly paler than the skin beside it. It made his wrist look naked.

“What are you doing?” Bonnie asked.

Later she berated herself that she should have known what was going to happen next. But at the moment, she just stood stupidly as his long fingers quickly wrapped the band around her wrist and pulled the strings so tautly that she gasped.

“Hey!”

Kai gave her a stern look as he knotted the strings.

“Stop,” she said and tried to pull her hand back but he held onto it firmly. His face was grim as she struggled, trying to use her other hand to pry his grip from her. “Let me go, Kai.”

“Ideally, I’d ask you if you trusted me,” he said coldly, finishing the knot with a bow, and she stopped struggling long enough to look at him. “But we both know the answer to that, right?”

His eyes glinted silver, and Bonnie felt a jolt of magic pour out from his hands into her wrist.

She cried out as the strap tightened so painfully that for a moment, she thought it was going to cut off her hand. Then the pain vanished, and with it the strap. It sank into her skin and disappeared. All that was left of it was a black band, roughly its shape, inked around her wrist like a tattoo.

She yanked her hand – he let her go – and clutched at her wrist, rapidly casting a string of spells. She could feel her magic work – which was a relief because there was a horrible split-second when she thought he  _really_  had somehow taken her magic from her – but nothing she did made any difference. The tattoo remained, the band irretrievably strapped around her.

“What the Hell did you just do to me?” she cried, looking up at him.

He smirked. “Maybe I put a hex on you.”

Oh god, Bonnie thought furiously, her heart now pounding out of control. Why even now, when she was so furious and yes, slightly frightened of him, did she want to reach up and kiss that smirk off his face?

What the Hell was wrong with her?

Kai’s eyes darkened then, the smirk slipping off, and she wondered, mortified, if her face had emoted her thoughts.

“Take it off,” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back. But he took a step closer and for a moment, she thought, wildly, inappropriately,  _please just kiss me_.

He didn’t, just kept staring down at her with that half-angry, half-hungry look on his face that she knew so well.

The moment passed.

Bonnie slid past him, turned the knob of the door and fled.


	8. this is how i died

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vampire made a sound that was between a gasp and a wail. She was staring at the twins with horror and a split second later, Kai realized why: Bonnie’s heart had stopped.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

_“Bonnie… Bonnie, wake up!”_

In the early hours of the day that would end with a wedding and a massacre, it was fitting that Elena Gilbert woke up Bonnie Bennett from a nightmare.

Bonnie sat up, her eyes wild as they latched onto Elena’s face. For a moment, what Bonnie saw was not the tear-streaked, anxious face of her oldest, dearest friend but a tall, dark-haired female vampire looming over her; and reflexively, her hand stretched out, magic lashing at its target.

Elena fell to her knees, holding her throat with one hand, gasping for breath.

“Bonnie, it’s me!” she managed to choke out.

It took Bonnie a moment before she could realise her mistake.  _Not Lily Salvatore. Elena. Not a vampire. Elena._  Then she pulled back the spell with a little scream. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you OK?”

“I-I’m fine,” Elena croaked, standing up slowly.

Bonnie started climbing out of the bed to help her, when she realized that she couldn’t. Her arms were attached by tubes to medical equipment by her bed. With a start, she realized that she wasn’t where she assumed she’d be when she woke up in a bed – in her dorm room – but apparently, in a hospital ward.

“What am I doing here?” she asked, confused.

“Don’t you remember?” Elena asked hoarsely as she fell back into the chair by Bonnie’s bedside. “Jo’s bachelorette’s party? The bar? Lily?”

And slowly, it came back to Bonnie. She shuddered violently and clamped her hand on her neck. The skin there was smooth, unbroken.

“She attacked me,” she whispered, more out of anger than fear. “Even after I let her go and she…” Then panic hit her, but not for herself. “Oh my god, Jo!”

“Jo’s fine,” Elena said quickly. “She followed in the ambulance that brought you here.”

“Where’s she now? Is she safe? The baby?”

Elena laughed ruefully, her eyes shining. “The babies are fine. Jo’s fine. You’re the one we were all worried about.”

“What about Lily? We need to track her down. We only just got Stefan and Caroline under control-”

“Lily’s not your problem anymore, Bonnie. You’re not listening to me, are you? You were in the hospital all night.”

“I got blood from you, didn’t I?” Her brow furrowed. “Why am I even here?”

“Oh, Bonnie,” Elena breathed and in the next moment, she had enveloped Bonnie, tubes, wires and all, into a fierce hug. “I was so worried about you.”

 _Why? Who’s in danger now? What new spell do you need?_  Bonnie wondered. “I’m fine,” she said, choking a little under Elena’s hair. “Can you…?”

Laughing softly, Elena pulled away. She sank back into her seat and wiped at her eyes.

In an effort to lighten the mood, and dispel her own bitter thoughts, Bonnie said glibly, “You can make up for your crazy future-mother-in-law by compelling a cute resident to check me out in the next five minutes. We’ve got to get out of here ASAP. Do you have any idea how many texts Caroline must have sent by now? She must be freaking out right now.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Elena groaned. “Whose bright idea was it to let her take over the wedding?”

Bonnie cleared her throat loudly.

“That was a rhetorical question!”

Bonnie laughed and in a few moments, Elena joined her. After a while, they fell silent, and simply stared happily at each other as they shared a rare, peaceful moment in their supernaturally melodramatic lives.

And then it was back to business.

“So where is Lily now?” Bonnie persisted.

“I told you. Gone.”

“What do you mean  _gone_?”

Elena looked at her uncertainly. “After she attacked you, Kai Parker was there-” She broke off, dashing quickly to one of the monitors in the room that had just given a shrill beep. She looked down worriedly at Bonnie. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Bonnie muttered, trying to even out her breathing that had hitched at the mention of  _his_ name. “You were saying…”

“I don’t think-”

The door flung open and a group of medical staff, headed by Dr. Jo Laughlin rushed in.

“You’re awake!” she gasped.

The others started poking and prodding at Bonnie without so much as a by-your-leave.

Dr. Jo hung back, staring at Bonnie.

Bonnie smiled uneasily. “I think so. Ouch!” she cried, when a nurse stabbed her with a needle.

“Oh god,” Jo said softly.

The good thing was that they removed half of the wires holding Bonnie in place. There was another doctor with the others, and after he checked the monitors, he spoke to Bonnie softly, asking her questions about her name, age, the current President, and then asking her how she felt.

“I feel fine,” Bonnie said quickly. “I think I’m good to leave now.”

The doctor and Jo exchanged glances, then he turned back to Bonnie. “I’m sure you do but I’m going to ask you to stay for a few more hours. You gave us a real scare, young lady. These machines tell me you’re fine, and everything checks out so we’ve unhooked you a bit but I’d like to run some tests before you leave and you’re going to get a few more hours of rest.” When Bonnie started talking, he waved her silent. “I know you have a wedding to go to, but trust me, I think the bride will understand.” He winked.

After a few minutes, the rest of the crew left. The doctor lingered at the door. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve seen some medical miracles but yours takes the cake. I don’t know if you’re a religious person, but you definitely need to check in with your Guardian Angel sometime today.”

He chuckled to himself. While Bonnie was still staring, he turned to Elena with a parting shot. “Ms. Gilbert, are you on call today?”

Elena shifted nervously. “Just staying with my friend, Dr.”

“Visiting hours are over,” he said sternly.

“Oh, let her stay,” Jo said, speaking up for the first time since she stepped into the room. “She’ll know not to wear her out.”

“She’d better. Miss Bonnie needs to rest. Next time, there’s a spike, Ms. Gilbert, I’ll have you thrown out.”

He left and Elena made a face at his departing back, making Bonnie giggle a little.

“I saw that,” Jo said sternly, but absentmindedly. She came to stand by Bonnie. Her face was filled with wonder as she looked down at Bonnie, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

Bonnie fidgeted a little under the scrutiny.

“I really am fine.” She snorted. “Medical miracle, huh? More like vampire blood.”

“Yeah,” Jo said slowly. “That was probably it.”

She bent down and carefully, navigating through the wires and tubes, gave Bonnie a hug. When she straightened up, her eyes were shining. She looked away quickly. “Gotta get ready for a wedding. You take care, Bonnie.”

“Bye Jo,” both girls said softly.

Bonnie turned to Elena when the door closed. “What happened to me last night?” she asked at once.

“I told you. Lily attacked you. We thought you won’t make it.”

“But I did.”

“Obviously,” Elena said with a shaky smile.

Bonnie shook her head, confused. There was something more to all this.

And Elena hadn’t answered her question about Lily’s whereabouts.

She asked her again, leaning forward earnestly. “Look, I need to know or I’ll just imagine the worst.”

Elena sighed. “She’s been banished to the 1903 prison world.”

Bonnie fell back against her pillows. “Oh.”

Elena was staring at her worriedly, as if she expected another of Bonnie’s monitors to start beeping.

But Bonnie merely said quietly, “so that’s over, then.” She exhaled heavily. “The whole trip might as well have never have happened.”

 _The whole trip should never have happened_  whispered a treacherous voice in Bonnie’s head.

“Not really,” Elena said hesitantly. “I got the Cure. I’m not sure Damon would have given it to me if she hadn’t made him.”

Elena had been doing that more and more of late, Bonnie managed to observe despite the thoughts swirling in her head. Speaking with a candidness about Damon, and her relationship with him in a way that Bonnie had never known her to do before.

“So, what did you decide?” Bonnie asked. She reached over and touched Elena’s cheek.

Even before her fingers made contact with warmth, Bonnie realized it. In truth, she should have realized it from the moment she woke up, and saw Elena, felt her presence. But she had got so used to Elena’s aura as just hers, not a vampire’s or a human’s, just  _Elena’s_  that it didn’t quite dawn on her until this moment.

She sank back into her pillows. “You did it,” she breathed. And now that Elena had actually done it, it struck Bonnie that a part of her had expected her friend not to go through with it. “You took the Cure.”

“You sound surprised?”

“I don’t really know why,” Bonnie admitted. “I mean, you’ve wanted to be human again since the moment you became a vampire.”

_I should know. I died the first time I tried to Cure you. Before then, I helped build the spell that killed your father so that you won’t wake up as a vampire after Klaus killed you. So I don’t know why I’m surprised you took it after a little second-guessing. Heck, you even managed to spare a few seconds from your night of ‘worrying’ over me to swallow it down._

The angry voice wasn’t a complete stranger to Bonnie. She had first started hearing it during those months of isolation in 1994, when reflection had led to despair. But then she found Damon’s map –  _hah!_ the voice said now – and found her way out of that prison and the voice had seemed to quieten when she returned home.

If she were honest with herself, Bonnie knew that the voice hadn’t completely left her in those early days. It had whispered to her when the morning after her return from 1994, Elena had asked her to babysit Caroline at the rave. It had rumbled at her when Damon had orchestrated that vomit-inducing encounter with Kai at the same rave. It had muttered the morning that he had appeared in her dorm, demanding her help with his mother.

But when she had been bending over Kai in the snow, holding her knife ready to strike – it had been quiet. And Bonnie had thought – hoped – that she had finally silenced it.

She hadn’t, though. But it had been quieter, only whispering words of uncertainty in the dead of night.

Then Jo told her that Kai couldn’t die, Bonnie had had to go back for him, and he had told her the truth – about her birthday, about Damon’s ‘rescue’ – and the voice had come rushing back in all its poisonous self-doubting glory. 

Elena’s eyes had taken a distant, faraway look. “So because I’ve always wanted it I should get it? How is that fair? No one gets what they want all the time. Life doesn’t work that way.”

Bonnie stared. “Why’re you talking like this?”

Elena looked down at the hands that were folded in her lap. “It just makes me wonder sometimes… if things don’t always work my way… usually at the expense of other people.”

_Damon’s hands around Abby’s neck. The cracking sound of her mother’s neck being snapped._

_Jeremy dying. Jeremy coming back._

_Bonnie dying. Bonnie coming back._

Bonnie looked away. “That’s ridiculous, Elena. You’ve suffered more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“I used to think so. But now I’m not so sure.”

“What are you trying to say, Elena?” Bonnie said, getting irritated. “Do you regret taking the Cure or what?”

“No,” Elena said firmly. “I don’t.”

“Sure about that? Last night you sounded completely unsure of what to do.” 

“Last night  _you_  seemed mad that I hadn’t taken the Cure already.”

“I wasn’t  _mad_ ,” Bonnie said testily.

“Are you sure?” Elena snuck a glance at her from beneath her lashes. “Because I think you were. You’re also mad at me right now, aren’t you?”

“Why should I be?” Bonnie muttered. 

_Mad at you for second-guessing the reason why Expression drove me half-mad? The reason we all risked apocalypse to get the Cure for you? The reason your brother died? Why I died bringing him back to life? Suffered for months as the Anchor and ended up in Kai’s prison world?_

_Raised Silas who murdered my father?_

_Why ever would I be mad at you for that?_

She kept the words in her head, but she couldn’t keep the bitterness from her gaze – not if the dejection on Elena’s face was any indication.

Guilt battled with fury inside Bonnie, and confusion came out top. Why was she so  _angry_? Yes, she was furious at Damon over the whole Kai affair. Damon hadn’t just hidden the truth from her – he had taken credit for her rescue when Jeremy and Kai -  _Kai!_ \- had done the heavy lifting. And to free his mother, he had lied to her and used her. Again.

But after the first flash of rage, it was almost a joke how unsurprised she was at Damon’s actions. Damon had just been Damon. He had not changed in the least, not really. It was Bonnie who had decided that he had, who had developed this idealized version of him in her head after four months of their time together. A version of him that simply did not exist in the real world.

He had given her no reason to believe he had changed.

Bonnie only had herself to blame for wanting to think he had.

But Elena…

Elena hadn’t known about Damon’s and Bonnie’s plans to trap Kai in 1903. Hadn’t even been meant to come along on that trip. Had explained to Bonnie in the middle of the massive blowout with Damon that she hadn’t known that Bonnie had been kept in the dark about the events that took place during her ‘birthday party’.

But at that time, Bonnie hadn’t cared and she had lashed out at Elena as well. They were reconciled now – something Bonnie was sure she could never be with Damon. Yet this lingering resentment, well, lingered. 

Why?

“Bonnie-” Elena whispered. She gave the at-the-moment silent monitors a worried glance.

Bonnie forced a smile on her face, pushing her confusing thoughts far into the back of her mind.

“No biggie, Elena. If you hadn’t taken it, I bet there are a million uses I could have found for the only known cure to immortality in the world. Or I could have auctioned it on the supernatural black market and paid off my student loans. Live rich as sin for the rest of my life.” Bonnie waggled her brows.

Elena managed a tentative smile. “Says the girl who has two trust funds and a college scholarship.”

“I kind of lost my scholarship when I died.”

“And all you have to do is give a name and number, and any one of a half dozen vampires would gladly compel it back to you. And talking of compulsion addicts, I don’t care what bonding experience you two went through in 1994 but please, don’t ever do that twitchy eyebrow thing again. That’s Damon’s thing. It looks ridiculous on him and it looks ridiculous on you.”

Despite herself, Bonnie snickered.

Elena rolled her eyes dramatically. “What’s even worse is that he thinks it’s sexy and I’ve never been able to break it to him that -.”

“Liv? Liv Parker?”

Elena cut herself off, to follow Bonnie’s gaze to the figure of Liv Parker, standing in her doorway, with the oddest look on her face as she stared at the two girls inside.

“Elena? Bonnie?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Liv?” Bonnie answered, echo-like. When Liv just kept staring, Bonnie and Elena exchanged confused glances.

“Are you OK?” Elena asked, slowly. “You look like if you’ve seen a ghost.” She chuckled uneasily. “Which isn’t figurative in these parts…”

“No, I…” Liv shook her head and the reflection of fluorescent light on her massive blonde curls almost blinded Bonnie. The white shock on her face had morphed into nervousness, which was an even stranger look on her. And considering that she had disappeared from Whitmore since her brothers merged and her twin lost – her presence alone was a bit of a surprise to the girls inside the room.

She stepped inside uncertainly. “I was looking for my sister. I went to her apartment and she wasn’t there… They told me at the desk that her shift just ended and I don’t know where Alaric lives…”

Elena stood up. “I can give you the address where she is.” Then she hesitated. “Only I don’t completely trust you, Liv.”

Liv blinked. “She’s my sister.”

“So you should have her number,” Elena countered.

Liv turned to Bonnie but the other witch’s face was blank. The blonde pursed her lips and tried to glare down the younger girls.

When it became obvious that they were not going to back down, Liv finally admitted, “I threw away my phone when I went on the run with my Dad. Everything I had on Jo was there. We and most of the witches in my coven just came out of hiding. Dad made us come back for Jo’s wedding. To show support. Apparently he and Kai have worked something out.” The look on her face spoke volumes about what she thought about  _that_.

“So get her number from your Dad.”

“He doesn’t have it either.”

Elena and Bonnie looked at each other. Both shook heads imperceptibly.

Elena turned back to Liv. “Then you can come to the venue early and try to catch hold of her. Or wait until the wedding, and see her with everyone else.”

Liv’s blue eyes flashed. “What the hell?” Magic crackled at her fingers.

“Hey!” Bonnie snapped and both witches locked gazes.

The sparks around Liv’s fingers vanished. But the ones in her eyes were still there.

“Please,” she tried for placating. It sounded painful. “I really need to talk to Jo. It’s important.”

“What is this about?” Elena asked. “Maybe if you explained to me…”

“What’s so difficult to understand that I want to be there for my sister on her wedding day?”

Elena snorted. “Did you remember that Jo was your sister when you were trying to kill Kai Parker? When  _he_  was trying to help us bring back Bonnie? Besides, you’re not always the most trustworthy person, Liv and you come from a really weird coven so forgive me if I don’t jump at the chance to reconnect you with my friend and mentor on her wedding day.”

“Wait a second… I’m the bad guy because I tried to kill  _Kai_?” Liv sputtered.

“You knew Kai’s life was linked to the rest of your coven and you were going to kill him and everyone else anyway.”

“I was upset,” Liv said through gritted teeth. “My twin just died and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Obviously.”

Liv’s face turned wrathful. “What happened? He did a few freebie spells for you vampires and he’s now everyone’s BFF?” She threw a poisonous glance at Bonnie. “Careful, Bennett. You’re dispensable now. Mega-powerful Gemini coven leader trumps self-tutored witch any-day.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bonnie replied at once but the barb had struck, and her voice didn’t sound quite as glib as she hoped. She felt Elena give her a look of concern, then turn to hiss furiously at Liv.

Liv raised a hand, staving the irate girl off. “As for you, Gilbert,  _your_ brother died and you and Rebekah Mikaelson racked up a massive body count when you went on your little Thelma and Louise trip from Virginia to New York. I would have thought that you of all people would have some freaking sympathy.”

Elena visibly wilted. “If you leave a number,” she conceded, “I’ll pass it on to Jo immediately, and she can decide to call you or not. That’s the best I can do for you.”

Liv glared at her but Elena straightened her spine, and didn’t waver.

In short violent movements that rattled Bonnie’s magic, Liv pulled out her purse, scribbled on a piece of paper, scrunched it into a ball and threw it at Elena.

She added a little juice to it, too because when Elena caught it, she yelped and dropped it.

“Ooops,” Liv said in the fakest way possible. “Let’s hope you have better luck catching the bouquet.”

She turned on her heel and slammed out the door.

“Bitch,” Elena muttered.

“Bitch,” Bonnie murmured at exactly the same time.

Then they looked at each other and burst out laughing.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

Bonnie sat at Liv’s dresser, hastily writing a thank you note. She hadn’t seen the blonde witch since morning and guessed Liv was probably giving her work presentation right now. She put a mention in her note, hoping that it went well. When she was done, she folded the paper and left it on Liv’s pillow. Then she picked up the notes she had already written for Jo and Alaric and tucked them into her purse,

It was all rather old-fashioned, but Bonnie was raised by her grandmother after all.

She had written a note for Kai, as well. Something incoherent and stupid and she had burnt it the moment she was done, feeling a little cathartic as she flushed the ashes down the toilet.

For the millionth time that morning, she fought her mind not to dwell on what had happened between them a few hours ago. Almost happened.

But how could she stop thinking about it? About him? This whole house was drenched with his essence. She felt his presence everywhere, and if she didn’t leave soon, she’d probably do something crazy.

Damon had come through – they had tickets to the 1245 flight – and Bonnie looked around the room to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind. Her eyes caught on the set of grimoires on Liv’s desk, where Bonnie had left them earlier. After chewing on her lip in thought, she quickly snatched the four at random and stuffed them into her suitcase, before she could change her mind. She’d send Liv a text from Virginia.

Of course, she could send one right now, asking for permission and probably get an answer before she left. But why risk Liv saying no?

Which reminded Bonnie of the strange way Liv had acted that morning, when she came to the nursery to call Bonnie. Frowning, Bonnie wondered what was up with that.

Or Kai’s anger that morning in the kitchen. She never did quite find out what it was that she did – and she was sure that  _she_  was the one that ticked him off. But why?

Was he mad that the Council had sort of come around to her in the end, and was sending that Quentins Asshat dude to Mystic Falls?

Or was it from their conversation the night before? That she had the audacity to come to Portland and ask him for help after everything that had happened between them?

Or maybe Kai was angry at her for purely existing, Bonnie thought bitterly. She could relate to that. Sometimes she felt that same way about him. Other times, she had no idea what she felt about him – only that it was extremely strong and mostly irrational.

She thought again about Liv informing her that Kai was around. And how  _unsurprised_  Bonnie had been. Because subconsciously, she had known he was around, hadn’t she? She had felt it. Up at the nursery, that sense of mingled dread and anticipation… it had been for Kai.

The realization that she was that attuned to him was alarming.

“You ready?”

She came out of her dark thoughts to realize that Damon was in the room, bouncing on her bed as he tipped his head towards her luggage.

Bonnie nodded, then slapped her forehead. “I haven’t called the cab yet.”

“Already did that, Bon Bon.”

She could tell that he was pleased they were leaving. She couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t wanted to come; he had been against the idea of seeking the Gemini’s help from the start; and then he had been proved right that his presence here was completely redundant.If this trip had been a heart-wrenching disappointment for Bonnie, it had been a complete waste of time for Damon.

Or had it…?

“…rumours of the Augustine Society being revived…”

Suddenly, Jo’s words from that first evening popped into Bonnie’s head. She had been too preoccupied then – was still very much preoccupied with everything going on – and had completely forgotten about it until now.

“Damon, have you heard…?”

“Heard what?”

She paused, staring at his mildly curious expression. Jo had said ‘rumours’. Bonnie certainly hadn’t heard anything about it and if Damon hadn’t either – then she’d be tipping him off. Why should she? The last thing needed was Damon going off on a rampage to murder the members of the fledging Society. Definitely, the last thing  _she_ needed was more blood on her hands. 

“Bon, what’s up?”

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said firmly. It was best to leave well enough alone. She resolved not to even mention it to anyone when they got back.

“Mmmm…” His eyebrows jumped a little. “You sure you’re ready to come home? You could stay a little while. Your ticket’s refundable.”

Bonnie eyed him warily. “Of course, I’m ready. What’s keeping me here?”

His eyebrows were going crazy now but whatever he had in mind, he opted to keep it himself, and as he stood to leave, Bonnie remembered something else. “What did you mean earlier in the kitchen? What you said about  _him_  laying down the law in Mystic Falls?”

“Oh. That.”

His tone was dismissive and Bonnie was immediately suspicious.

“I asked for full disclosure, Damon. Don’t you even th-.”

“Relax, Judgy. This is stuff that happened ages ago, nothing at all to do with our witchpire crisis.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Spit it out.”

“Liv is right. You really found your inner T-Rex, didn’t you?” When she made a threatening move, he raised his hands placatingly. “OK, OK. If you really have to know every single nitty gritty of everything…”

She crossed her arms sternly.

He rolled his eyes and plumped back on the bed with a dramatic sigh. “Sometime last Fall, a gang I used to roll with back in the 70s came to town. Wanted to see their good friend Damon, party some, you know, the usual?”

He grimaced at the look on Bonnie’s face. “Forgot for a moment who I was talking to. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the partying led to bodies. I try to get them in line, and that led to more bodies. Everyone’s getting pretty tense. Stefan, Matt, Ty, Caroline… Heck, you’d probably have been getting tense yourself if you weren’t too busy not giving a damn about us back then,” he added, glibly ignoring the sharp glare threw his way. “So there I was in the middle of it, trying to smooth things over. Which would have been so much easier if I had a witch helping me. Not accusing anyone here. Just saying, you know. Just stating the facts.”

“Enough with the guilt-tripping, Damon,” she snipped.

“Like I said, just saying things as they are. So… around this time, I get a call from Portland.”

He mimicked the call, the gist of which apparently was some high ranking Gemini, speaking with the coven leader’s authority, had offered to send ‘help’ to Mystic Falls.

“The ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ kind of help.”

In not so many words, it was made clear to the Salvatores that it would be in their best interest to solve the situation in Mystic Falls themselves and in the future, make sure that whatever went on in that town was never high-casualty enough to blink on the Gemini radar.

“I almost wanted to take him up on the offer. Let them come in to ‘help’. Get a chance to break some Gemini skulls. But Reason, also known as Stefan Salvatore, prevailed.”

“So what happened after that?” Bonnie asked quietly.

Damon shrugged. “I sent my old friends on a one-way ticket to Permanent Retirement; and ever since then, Stefan and I have managed to keep the mundane population safe enough not to warrant a Gemini intervention. We’ve had a couple of setbacks and it’s been a struggle without a witch to help us. But we’ve managed.”

Bonnie was silent.

“And you’d think that now that we’re actually asking for help, he’d be jumping at the bit to give it…” He shook his head, then winked. “Ah well. At least we have you, don’t we, B-Bomb?”

Bonnie forced back a smile. “Right.”

“Don’t you worry, BB, we’re going to beat those guys. Show these Oregon stiffs how we kick ass in Virginia.”

He got up again and bent to pick up her bags. He pretended to gasp. “I thought you dropped off the babies’ gifts? How the hell are these heavier now than they were a few days ago?”

“Is someone letting himself go?” Bonnie murmured, more out of habit than anything.

“Maybe I should let you carry your own weight?” he retorted snidely.

“Do that, Damon, and there’s no telling what you’ll find when you open your backpack in Mystic Falls.”

Their back and forth lasted a few more minutes but Bonnie won in the end – and he shuffled out of her room with her bags, muttering under his breath.

The moment he left, the weight of what he had just told her seemed to settle on Bonnie, and she remained sitting for a moment longer.

So Kai had threatened an intervention in Mystic Falls, enough to make Stefan and Damon take direct responsibility for keeping the town safe. She had thought all this while that it was mostly Stefan being Stefan – he had always been protective towards the town – and Damon going along with his brother more for the thrill of conflict than anything else. But now she realized that the extra motivation of keeping the Gemini away from the town had probably helped. She remembered Enzo’s paranoid rants and, before that, gossip from the witches she had hung with briefly in Europe: once in a while, the Gemini coven would descend on extremely problematic towns and sweep out the supernatural population  _en masse_ , skipping straight from arrest to executions, and jumping over the trial portion of supernatural criminal justice.

But if all this was true, how did the Gemini leader go from threatening that intervention a year ago to washing his hands off the town now that, as Damon admitted, it definitely needed his help?

It was so maddening, Bonnie realized with no small frustration. His inconsistency. His inability, his  _resistance_  even to be someone that she could figure out easily and immediately dismiss. She felt like if she kept on getting pieces of the puzzle that was him, but she had no idea where they fit or even how large a picture she was supposed to reconstruct.

With a defeated sigh, she stood up and pulled on her jacket. Her gaze snapped to the black band on her wrist. Yet another puzzle piece. She rubbed her thumb over it, felt the magic –  _his_  magic – thrumming beneath.

_What the hell is this thing?_

She remembered the look on his face when he cast it and shuddered. Then she frowned at herself, abruptly snapped her cuff closed, and stepped out of the room.

Alaric had long gone but Jo was just shuffling out of her room. They both could hear Damon on the steps, perversely walking and carrying Bonnie’s luggage at a human pace, and grumbling all the way.

“Hey Bonnie,” she said with a smile. “You really have to leave right away?”

“There was another attack last night.”

Jo’s face turned grave. “So I heard.”

Feeling a bit self-conscious, Bonnie reached into her purse and handed over the notes. “I made these. Just a thank you to you guys for having us.”

Jo’s face smoothened into a smile. “Awww, this is so sweet. You know, Sheila used to do this, too.”

Bonnie blinked as her heart filled with the familiar poignant feeling that always hit her at the mention of her grandmother. “I know.”

Jo looked at her face, then pulled the younger woman into a hug. Bonnie returned it gratefully.

“Can’t you stick around a little longer?” Jo asked, still in the hug. “You’re not taking Summer classes, are you?”

Bonnie sighed, pulling away. “Mystic Falls will literally burn down if I don’t get back soon.”

Jo shrugged. “Let it.”

It was a good joke but Bonnie laughed with a touch of bitterness. She stopped when she realized that the other woman was serious. “Tell me you’re joking?”

“Why not, Bonnie? Don’t you think you’ve done enough for that town? Enough for,” she jerked her head in the direction of the stairs and Damon’s general location. “Elena walked away from it all. Why can’t you? Isn’t it time you cut yourself some slack? Let someone else shoulder the burden?”

She had tried that, hadn’t she? Bonnie thought bitterly. Turned her back on Mystic Falls for a year.

It had cost April Young her life.

But all she muttered now was, “Asking for help was kind of the idea when we came here.” On an impulse, she asked, “Did you know that the Gemini mandated Damon and Stefan to protect the town?”

Jo was clearly surprised. “First I heard of it. Normally, the coven would  _never_  ally or partner with vampires but… in this case, I guess it makes sense? The whole ‘it takes a thief to catch a thief’… Sounds like something my brother would come up with.”

“I guess it worked,” Bonnie admitted. “The number of ‘animal attacks’ last year was at an all-time low. What I don’t get is how the coven went from threatening to take over Mystic Falls to refusing to help now.”

“Well, priorities are shifting all the time. Do you have any idea just how vastly spread supernatural activities are? The coven is stretched thin. Finite resources and infinite obligations and all that. But I bet you, if you ask any of your cop buddies to check the statistics of ‘unexplained deaths’ and ‘animal attacks’ nationwide, you’ll see that it’s dropped rapidly in the past year. Kai’s getting stuff done. A lot of stuff, not just in Mystic Falls.”

That was surprising news to Bonnie. And yet still, “but the heretics are uniquely a Gemini problem. They should get priority, Jo. No one else knows how to deal with them.”

Jo’s lips twisted, like if she was biting back something. But all she said was, “well, you’re not exactly leaving here empty-handed, are you? You’re getting help – a Councilman for that matter.”

“We’re getting an asshat in a suit.”

Jo burst into laughter. “Yeah, that’s a good way to describe Quentin.” Her eyes became soft. “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s not a bad sort.”

“Really?” Bonnie asked, highly skeptical.

“He was friends with my younger siblings growing up. He and the twins served as Envoys together, and he must have been good to be in their team. From what Liv’s told me, he and Luke even…” She blinked a little. “Well, he was a different person before. Then Luke died, and he got a seat on the Council. And he became a bit …”

“… of an asshat?” Bonnie suggested, but she smiled a little.

Jo returned her smile. “I’ll give you a good reason to be friends with Quentin,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Kai doesn’t like him. You two getting along will tick him off.”

Bonnie fought – and won – against the blush that wanted to fill her face. “I don’t care what Kai thinks.”

“Really?” Jo said, with a mocking smile that was uncannily like her twin’s.

“Yes,” Bonnie said firmly.

Thankfully, Jo dropped it. She hooked her arm around Bonnie’s and took her to the nursery to say good-bye to the twins.

The two little darlings were fast asleep, lying side by side in the same crib. Even though there were two cribs, on the rare occasions when the twins’ schedules aligned, they tried to put them together.

“Bye girls,” Bonnie whispered softly and on an impulse, she sent a little shimmer of happy magic above their heads. It shattered into tiny sparkles around the crib.

She glanced at Jo with a smile and saw the woman looking at her solemnly.

When they stepped out of the nursery, she turned to Jo at once, feeling awkward. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind.” She had no idea of the etiquette of magic use around little witches – one more thing to chalk up to her lack of proper witchy  _Disciplina_. “It’s just a little light show that they’ll see when they wake. It’ll fade in a day, maybe less.”

Jo’s serious face broke into a chuckle. “Oh no,” she said. “That was me being silly. I was only…” She laughed again and looked a little embarrassed. “Sometimes, I miss magic, you know? I remember doing things like that for my younger sisters and brothers. It would have been nice to be able to do it for my own kids. Poor Martha and Rachel are going to be brought up by a pair of mundanes.”

“Hey,” Bonnie said. “I didn’t know I was a witch until I was sixteen. My all-mundane dad raised me and I think I turned out pretty OK.”

Jo gave her a grateful smile and Bonnie remembered what Liv had told her about the coven’s initial intention to take the twins from Jo and Alaric.

What creeps.

“You were great with the twins, by the way,” Jo said now. “So whenever you’re ready to have kids of your own, just know you’ll be fine.”

Bonnie shrugged. “That’s not likely to happen soon.” Her love life was non-existent. After she got back from Europe – and  _none_  of the randoms in Europe counted – she had probably gone on a total of three dates with a couple of guys in her major.

And before Europe, there had been…

Nothing, she told herself firmly. Nothing but a phenomenally bad idea and a waste of both their times. An impulsive and ultimately stupid decision based on a long night of magic, adrenaline and hormones. 

OK, maybe more than one night.

She was blushing now. And from the meaningful look on Jo’s face, the older woman knew exactly why.

Thankfully, she didn’t probe. “Did I ever tell you that I once caught Damon in a staring contest with Rachel? He said he was scanning her for Evils.”

Laughter sputtered out of Bonnie. “Well, it takes one to know one, I guess?”

The two women were struggling to contain their chuckles and didn’t hear the soft footsteps behind them.

“Bonnie Bennett, is it?”

An unfamiliar voice wheezed the question from behind her.

Bonnie spun around and found herself looking at an old lady with hair almost as white as her skin and bright blue, bird-like eyes that stared hard at Bonnie with disconcerting curiosity.

Jo stepped up to stand between them. “Bonnie, this is Gab. She stops by on occasion to help with the twins. She and my family go a long way back.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bonnie said, shaking hands.

Gab’s small fingers, ringed with stones the same shade as her eyes, were surprisingly firm and she peered hard into Bonnie’s eyes as if she was trying to see through them to Bonnie’s skull.

“’was  _her_  nanny, too, and all the other Parker bunnies that their folks kept breeding. Liv don’t remember me ‘cos by the time she was born, Micah’d pop out one ’n’ give it to Jo–”

“- _right in the delivery room._ Yeah, I remember, Gab. I was there.” Jo said, dryly.

“Sounds kind of sexist,” Bonnie muttered. “What happened to your twin?”

A cloud passed over Jo’s face. “No one was going to allow Kai anywhere near witch babies.” She saw the way Bonnie looked, and smiled airily. “Which was a pity because the times we went behind our parents back and let Kai help, he was better with them than me.”

Bonnie tried to return the smile, but the sick feeling inside her barely allowed her to stretch her lips.

She felt a tug and looked at Gab with a gasp. The old woman was still holding Bonnie’s hand and still glaring up at her. “Known this family for a long time. Messed up family. Don’t need nobody’s help making a bigger mess of things, know what I mean?”

Her grip was becoming painful, rings digging into Bonnie’s flesh. “Ouch!” Bonnie said, yanking her hand away.

“Gabby.” Jo spoke up sharply.

“Hush, child. Bit of Parker in me, too and don’t you forget it. I speak my mind. Always have. Always will. Did it to ya pop. Did it to ya ma. Did it to  _ya_ grandma, Bonnie Bennett,” she said and Bonnie started. “I do to ya brother, his High and Mightyness ’n’ I’ll definitely do it to ya, little Bonnie.”

“You knew my grandmother?” Bonnie whispered.

Gab sniffed. “You go ask your Sheila if  _she_  knew Gabrielle O’Sullivan,” she declared, puffing herself up.

Jo looked mortified. “Gab…” she said, despairingly.

Bonnie stared at the old woman. “My grandmother’s dead.”

Gab scowled. “So? She can still talk, can’t she?”

And with that, she shuffled into the nursery.

Bonnie turned to Jo with what must have been a “what the-?” look all over her face.

Jo laughed and hugged her, apologetically. “Oh my goodness, Bonnie, I’m so sorry! But she really does treat everyone like that. Even my father.” She hooked arms with Bonnie again and they started walking down the corridor to the steps.

“You guys let her watch the twins? Isn’t she a bit?” Bonnie pointed a finger at her temple and twirled it in a tight circle.

Jo shrugged. “She’s old, and half the people she’s known in her life, from your Grams to her brother, are dead. Can you blame her? In her own way, she’s probably saner than you and I and she is a brilliant witch. Most importantly though, she’s one of the few people that didn’t give Alaric and me any grief when we came here.” Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “I’d be stupid to trust any of the other witches that offered. They’d probably hex Alaric and me in our sleep and steal our Rachel and Martha.”

Bonnie shuddered. “Your coven is so…”

“Disturbing? Scary? Evil?”

“You said it not me.”

“It won’t be for long, not if Kai has anything to do about it.” Bonnie stumbled a little but Jo held her firmly. “My Dad was Praetor way longer than he ought to have been. It affected the coven. Now Kai’s in charge and he has some great ideas. He’s been shaking things up for a while now and he’s going to do even more once we get the coven to fully accept him. It’s been an uphill journey, yes. I keep thanking heavens every-day that Kai had the sense to make Dad a member of the Council.  _I_  thought it was a bad idea myself but it’s turned out to be for the best. Who would have thought? Once Kai and my Dad were probably going to kill each other and now, they’re a team. You never know with people, right?”

Bonnie said nothing.

Jo pressed on. “I’d never have imagined I would ever say this about my brother but he just may be the best thing that’s happened to our coven.”

They were almost at the bottom of the stairs and Bonnie had a clear view of Damon, standing on the porch besides their bags, looking out for the cab. Just a few steps to the door and Bonnie would escape Jo and her Kai Appreciation monologue.

But when they reached the last step, Jo held her firm, stalling her to a stop. She turned so that she was looking right down at Bonnie’s morose face.

“Kai’s going to find a way to help you, Bonnie. Depend on that.”

 _Can you please shut up about him?_ Bonnie thought, despairingly.

Instead, she replied in what she hoped was a neutral voice, “Liv already explained to me about coven politics and I do understand. The Council recommended not to get involved with Mystic Falls and he has to…”

“Kai doesn’t give a crap about the Council,” Jo said with a short laugh. “And he’s going to find a way to help  _you_  not Mystic Falls.”

Bonnie felt her heart flutter with hope and she damped it down at once.

Feigning indifference, she answered, “Thanks for saying this, Jo but I’m not going to hold my breath. Besides, we’ve,” – and she jerked her head towards Damon – “been handling things for years before we even heard about the Gemini. I think we’ll do just fine.”

Jo frowned. “Or you could just go to the airport now and change your flight to Europe. Visit Elena. Give yourself a vacation.”

Bonnie smiled. That wasn’t such a bad idea. The three of them – Bonnie, Elena and Caroline had had a blast the previous summer – and she told Jo so. “Elena’s probably in the middle of some crisis zone at the moment. But afterwards? After all this crazy? Definitely.” Her smile turned mischievous. “We can all go. I’m sure three vampires can wrangle up tickets and visas for all of us, and the babies.”

Jo chuckled ruefully. “There’s no talking you out of this, is there?” She unlinked her elbow from Bonnie’s and gave her a little shove towards the door. “I’ll hold you to that vacation someday, Bonnie Bennett.” And they went outside to meet Damon.

The taxi pulled up just as Jo finished saying her goodbye to her husband’s best friend.

“You’re always welcome back. We’ll miss you.”

“Aw, Jo,” he said with an uncharacteristically fond smile and hugged her. “Had a great time last night?” he quipped.

Bonnie bowed her head in shame.

“The best,” Jo shot back at once.

“Did he do that thing with the lemon?” Damon asked in a loud whisper. “’Cos I told him that.”

Bonnie groaned.

Jo patted his cheek. “Ask him about that thing with the jam.”

His eyebrows went crazy. “You know about the thing with the jam?”

Jo winked. “ _I_ taught him the thing with the jam.”

And on that happy note, she gave a laughing Bonnie another hug, blew a kiss at a dazed-looking Damon and flounced into the house.

“You know I’m going to have to kill Alaric and steal you from him now, don’t you?” he shouted after her when he had managed to pick his jaw from the floor.

As they piled into the car, he asked Bonnie, his eyebrows jerking in earnestness, “Remind me again why  _I_  didn’t date her?”

It got boring fast and she gave him an aneurysm to get some peace for the rest of the trip to the airport.

* * *

**May 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

Latent magic tingled against Bonnie’s fingers as she manually configured the Gilbert device. She had already set up the candles in preparation for the first vampire to walk into the War Room for testing.

She didn’t expect said vampire to prance in bare-chested, shirt hooked with one finger over his shoulder, and his jeans low on his hips. Bonnie nearly levitated one of Matt’s freshly whittled stakes into his bare white chest.

“What the hell, Damon?”

His leer was wide enough to split his face into two. “Like what you see?”

Bonnie threw the stake. His vamp speed just got him out of the way on time.

“Whew! That’s new,” he chortled, mock-confused. “Women usually react differently to the sight of nearly naked me.”

“You idiot,” Bonnie hissed. “ _Caroline_ is upstairs.” Was he really that insensitive?

The leer slipped out his face at that, something like contrition taking its place. “Uh, sorry. My bad.” He turned defensive. “But I heard you were looking for a vampire guinea pig to test some of the Gilbert devices on.”

“And you thought I needed a naked Guinea pig?”

He leered again, but only half-heartedly. “If you want to be thorough…”

“Put your damn clothes on, Damon.”

He heaved a big sigh, then made a production of twisting around to pull on his shirt. Bonnie snuck a quick glance – she was only human after all – and gasped.

“What is that?”

“What?” he asked, half-in and half-out of his shirt.

She turned him around – ignoring his lewd quipping at that – to get a closer look.

It was raised skin, thicker and whiter than the rest, low on his back. Its covered area was about the size of her palm and its shape was like an…

“Oh, my old war scar?”

“Your old scar?”

“From, you know, the time I was an idealistic human, fighting for the wrong side.” His voice was uncharacteristically bitter. She looked up at him as he made a face.

She stared back down at the scar. “You’ve  _always_  had this scar?”

“Sure thing, Bonnie. Most women who’ve had the pleasure of my company are intimately aware of it.” She didn’t need to look to know that he was leering again.

She ignored it, her eyes focused on the scar. She and Damon hadn’t exactly spent their time in the Prison World prancing around half-naked in front of each other; but it had been a perpetual May and skin had been shown once in a while. Even before then, surely Elena’s one-time boyfriend must have tagged along to a beach-party or two? Shouldn’t something this size and this prominent have jumped out at anyone?

Her palm hovered over it, and she felt a tinny tremor of magic. From the scar? Or an echo from the Gilbert device that she had just fiddled with?

“You’re freaking me out, Witchy. Or checking me out? I can’t tell the difference.”

Bonnie stepped back. “Sorry. Just a little bit… Of course, it must have been as you said, right? You can’t get scars on vampire skin.”

“Yep.” He turned around, tucking in his shirt and grinned up at her.

“Unless,” she said quietly, “you got some kind of magic brand on yourself. Like a tattoo for vamps?”

He stared. “Why would I want to mar all this perfection?”

“It’s a very neat scar, Damon,” she said carefully. “In fact, it doesn’t look much like a scar. It looks more like a brand… in the shape of the Viking symbol for the letter ‘E’.” The moment she said it, she almost bit her tongue but it was too late.

Shutters fell over his face.

Ah, one of those beautifully awkward moments where she knew that she had crossed a line – and crossing  _back_  was probably going to be even  _more_  awkward than just digging her heels into the mire of invasiveness that she had stumbled her way into.

But as the saying went: in for a dime, in for a dollar. Bonnie cleared her throat, trained her gaze on his left ear, and shoved her big nose right in.

“Before we left for Europe, you came crying to me about how you planned on taking the Cure with Elena and you didn’t understand why she had suddenly ended things…”

Damon said nothing. He didn’t have to, because his eyebrows were clearly doing all the talking for him.

“You don’t talk about it at all. No ranting. No venting. It’s almost creepy, really. Heck, when I came back from Europe, I half-expected to find half of the town’s population in a cemetery or something.”

Still more dead silence.

“Which, by the way, is a  _good_  thing. I’m actually kind of impressed? I mean, a tattoo, magical or not, is pretty much standard fare for a bad breakup. Heaven knows that the Damon I knew before… Well, when you were having a bad day, you made sure that everybody else was having an even worse one…”

“Finished yet?” He asked, his voice level and pleasant.

She gulped, then nodded.

“So are we taking turns in this little tête-à-tête?”

“Damon…”

“I’ve done all this sharing – or rather, you’ve done all this sharing for me. Now Busy B, it’s your turn to share. Let’s start with the real reason why you shot down Stefan’s idea that we page Portland for backup.”

She inhaled sharply. “I said I was finished.”

“Or even better, let’s call everyone back and have a revote. All it takes is just one disgruntled vamp to change his mind and hey presto! the Calvary will be here with bells and whistles. I suddenly don’t mind a little spontaneous Class of 1994 reunion. You, me, and one Malac-”

“That’s enough, Damon!”

Her head pounded with tension.

Damon, on the other hand, looked serene. He smiled at her, almost kindly.

“You don’t poke my scar and I don’t poke yours, BonBon. Got it?”

Her lips tightened. “Got it.”

He hopped on the table, knocking down one of her candles. “So… let’s get started.”

* * *

**June 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

The flight from Portland was peaceful – no turbulence, clear skies – and across the aisle, Damon was sleeping like the dead. Bonnie had been restless all through out, trying to distract herself with the inflight entertainment but only ended up with her mind wandering to things – and people – she’d rather not be thinking about.

_His fingers lined up with hers, his own long, slender and rubbing slightly against the spaces between her own_ _…_

_His fingers in her hair, wrapped so tightly that she could only move her face a little as his mouth devoured her own_ _…_

_His fingers deep inside her, his rings literally working magic in her core_ _…_

She turned to the window, blood rising in her cheeks, shifting in her seat, and said silent thanks that she had the row to herself.

It was evening by the time she and Damon hiked the ten miles to where the Camaro was packed. They had had one of their spats when they were leaving Virginia and so to spite her, even though he could obviously afford it, he had deliberately not paid for airport packing. In between bitching under her breath as she panted along behind him, she called to check in with their friends.

Caroline’s and Stefan’s numbers were both busy. Ignoring Damon’s string of pornographic speculations as to why this was the case, Bonnie tried Matt’s number and he picked up on first ring.

“Bonnie!” he said with his usual warmth. “Am I glad to hear from you.”

“Hey Matt,” she said with a smile. “How’re you doing?”

“Great now that you’re back. How was your trip?”

She told him, but she kept the pleasantries brief, moving the conversation quickly to the latest murder. She put the phone on speaker so Damon could chip in.

“We’ve got a little more information about Judith Stewart. She was an unorthodox pharmacist in Nebraska. She had just opened shop there about a year ago. The plane ticket in her wallet brought her to Virginia the night before she died.”

“What was she doing here, all the way from Nebraska?” Damon wandered, voicing Bonnie’s own question.

“No idea yet. We’re going through her things to find something.”

Judith Stewart had been found in a motel room near the town.

“There’s a pattern here, I just can’t see it,” Matt continued.

“Well, keep your deerskin cap on, Mattlock…” Damon started, and then trailed off as he grinned at Bonnie. “Get it?  _Matlock_?”

Bonnie frowned at him, wondering who was the butt of this joke – her or Matt? “No, I don’t.” She turned her attention to Matt. “Any sightings of the heretics?”

“None whatsoever. I’m worried, Bon. The days before an attack, we’d spot them hanging at a corner, or in a bar, or at a rave. Somewhere. Now. Nothing.”

“They’re planning something,” Bonnie concluded, apprehension filling her. Instinctively, she glanced around her but the street lights on the fairly empty airport road just blinked innocently back.

“Great,” Damon said, his eyebrows shooting out in opposite directions. “Alaric’s and Jo’s anti-vamp house had started making me feel almost human. I’m spoiling for a fight.”

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

_The soon-to-be Dr. Jo Saltzman’s bachelorette party was over – well, if one called three women and an empty bar a party. Of course, if Bonnie had taken up the offer that the gorgeous hunk of a stripper had clearly been offering before he left, she’d probably be having her own party of two right now. It was almost a shame, because Elena and Jo were all respectably taken women. She felt like if she was letting the team down._

But the carefree party girl mode – a relic from her old cheerleading days – had long timed out and Bonnie was running on empty, sipping her drink quietly and letting the fake, bright smile on her face fool Elena and Jo into thinking that she gave a damn about the ongoing conversation.

It was something about Elena and Damon and the cure. Honestly, if Bonnie had realized that bringing the cure to them was going to cause such drama, she’d have left the stupid thing in Nova Scotia, circa 1994.

“What’s your opinion, Bonnie?” Elena asked at last.

 _About what?_  Bonnie took a big gulp of her glass and tried to think fast.

Thankfully, Elena’s phone buzzed then. “It’s Damon,” she whispered to the others and looking tense, she slipped out to the back of the bar.

Bonnie made a face and hid it behind her glass.

Jo reached out a hand to grab hers.

“You doing OK, Bon?” she asked.

Bonnie grinned broadly. “Just peachy.”

Jo cocked her head in a gesture that reminded Bonnie of her brother. The grin wavered.

“I called my med school classmate. He didn’t get a call from you.”

“Oh, you mean the shrink?” Bonnie said casually. “I forgot about that. I don’t think I really need one, you know what I mean?”

So what if she couldn’t remember the last time she had a good night’s sleep? If it wasn’t nightmares, it was insomnia – the sound of silence, and her own internal musings spinning round and round and round in her brain until she passed out.

She’d get over it. She was Bonnie Bennett. That was what she did.

Jo frowned. “I stand by what I said when you came in for your physical. The ordeal you went through – the isolation – there’s a reason why solitary confinement is a method of punishment for hardened criminals. And that’s not counting what my brother put you through. And before that? Your time as the anchor? What you must have gone through…?”

Bonnie laughed hollowly. “Are you sure you’re not trying to take your friend’s job? I think you could do some part-time as a shrink yourself.”

Jo’s hand on hers became tight.

“Ouch?”

“You did a lot for me, for my entire coven when you went back for Kai.” Bonnie froze at the name. “And that was just you going back. I didn’t expect the heretics… I promise you, Bonnie, I had no idea they were awake. Damon and Elena assured me they weren’t and I couldn’t imagine that Kai would, for any reason, wake them.”

“I don’t think he did that on purpose,” Bonnie said, squirming.

She didn’t want to think about how Kai had been when she found him. About what he must have gone through before she did.

She had had Qestiya’s magic in addition to her own to fight those creatures and even then she had barely made it back alive.

“Turns out that I owed Kai my life anyway,” she mumbled. “So you gave me a chance to pay him back.” Her voice wavered a little. The confused emotions that usually assailed her whenever she dwelt on this – on the idea that Kai,  _that anyone had almost died saving her life_ \- threatened to overwhelm her.

“Bonnie?”

She took a long draw from her glass, waited until the burn pushed away that dark storm of emotional turmoil for another day. Ignoring the voice whispering  _coward_  in her head, she smiled at Jo. “Besides, we’ve had this conversation already. You thanked me. You’ll name your firstborn after me. Yada yada yada.”

“I’m not thanking you again,” Jo said, then she laughed. “OK, maybe I am thanking you a little. But I’m also saying that you need a break, Bonnie. You’ve been through a lot in the past … years now, if Elena’s stories are anything to go by. I went through one traumatic event and I gave up my magic, changed my name and ran away from my family for eighteen years.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Bonnie said and she was only being half-sarcastic.

“Sheila never wanted this life for you,” Jo said sadly. “She did just about everything she could to protect you from the supernatural.”

“Maybe instead of spending all that effort protecting me, she should have spent some more teaching me how to protect myself,” Bonnie said bitterly.

Jo leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and stared at Bonnie.

Bonnie bit her lip, feeling ashamed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have talked about Grams like that. Sometimes I feel like she was the only person who ever cared about me.” Sadness washed over her. “I miss her. Yet sometimes I’m so angry with her, you know?” She sighed, and shifted in her seat. “Look, I don’t want to spoil your day. I guess the party’s over. You have your beauty sleep to catch up with…”

“It’s good to be angry,” Jo said, cutting her short. “It’s good to  _feel_  angry at Sheila. And Damon. And Caroline. Stefan. Even Elena.”

Bonnie shifted, guiltily under Jo’s prying eyes.

“Anger is  _healthy_. My goodness, Bonnie, you were stuck in a Prison World for half a year and your friends –”

“Good evening, Miss Bennett. Miss Laughlin.”

The two women looked up in surprise. There had been no sound of a door opening. Or of footsteps walking across the empty bar.

The moment they saw the woman who stood above them, her posture ramrod straight, oozing old-time propriety even in her slacks and shirt, Jo and Bonnie sprang to their feet at once.

Lily Salvatore smiled, but her eyes on Bonnie were like ice. “I was out for a walk and I saw you through the window and I thought to myself, ‘I know her. That young lady broke my trust and  _ruined my life_.’”

“I never meant to hurt you, Lily,” Bonnie said quietly, her magic rushing to her fingers. Slowly, she started edging nearer Jo. Something nagged at her thoughts, but she couldn’t think past getting herself and Jo safely through this moment. “I was only ever going back to get Kai. It’s over now. The Ascendant is no longer in my possession.”

“Surely we can retrieve the device and bring my family home?” Lily said, and there was a touch of desperation in her voice.

Bonnie shook her head. The idea of those  _things_  getting loose was enough to make her skin crawl.

She was now close enough to Jo that her shoulders knocked against the other woman. She tried to move the few inches needed to shield Jo completely from Lily; but Jo must have realized what she was trying to do because she pushed back against Bonnie.

“Not with my blood. Not with any help from me or Kai,” Bonnie said coldly. “Your so-called family are monsters and we’re never letting them out.”

The veneer of propriety slipped off like a mask to reveal the monster beneath – red eyed, red veined and Lily lunged forward.

Bonnie was ready, her hands already curled up and aneurysm after aneurysm hit the vampire, making her scream and fall to her knees.

“It’s over, Lily. Let it go,” Bonnie warned, “and get out!”

Lily stretched out a hand to the table near her for support, her other hand still holding her head. She raised her head enough to stare at Bonnie with pain-filled eyes. “Your mistake,” she hissed.

Then her hand flew out and pain exploded in Bonnie’s neck.

Bonnie screamed and she grasped her neck, swaying, the spell breaking as the pain radiated like a spider’s web from her neck to every part of her body. There was something there – a dagger, a  _pin_ , and her blood was gushing through her fingers. She fell to her knees, her hand on the cold floor, the only thing keeping her from falling to her face.

She was suddenly choking and when she coughed, blood spurted out.

After surviving death twice, the agony of being the Anchor, a prison world and the psychopath it was built for, Bonnie Bennett was going to bleed to death on the floor of the grill from a fucking  _pin_.

Lily’s steps were light, measured – still walking in that precise, finishing school trained elegance – as she stepped towards her. But she still had to go past Jo.

Bonnie heard the bride-to-be scream and tried to summon her magic but she couldn’t. She was in too much pain. She was losing too much blood. She couldn’t save herself. And she certainly couldn’t save Jo and her baby.

Too late, far too late, the memory of a nightmare gripped Bonnie.

_This is how I die._

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she felt the edges of her vision begin to darken. Above her, Jo and Lily were talking but Bonnie couldn’t hear them above the rush of blood in her veins. Her arm, the one that was keeping her face from the floor, was trembling now with the effort of holding her weight.

Finally her elbow slackened and she was about to land on the floor…

When strong arms caught her, lifting her from the ground.

Bonnie gazed up into a pair of stormy blue eyes. They were the last things she saw before the darkness overcame her.

* * *

Whatever dark reputation the Genovas bore amongst their fellow Gemini, cowardice was not one of their flaws. The family of three that had turned up with Matt Donovan earlier that day had seemed more in awe of being hosted by the Praetor himself, than they were afraid that Joshua’s mad boy would murder them in their sleep. It wasn’t Kai’s choice to have company, but the wedding of Joshua Parker’s long-lost daughter – who had resurfaced after nearly two decades and somehow managed to survive her Merge Ceremony – was the stuff of dreams for his gossipy coven and now that Joshua Parker had called the exiles back, every Gemini in the world seemed to be in Virginia this weekend. There was only so much magic could do about unavailable hotel rooms.

Kai left them pottering through his flat, and wandered the streets, his plans chasing each other through his mind. There were a dozen ways it all could go wrong, and a dozen more it could work and still blow up in his face. But he was too close now to back down and he needed…

He needed an outlet for the fury that had been building inside him since his first horror-filled night in 1903. Apparently one of the down-sides of pesky emotions was that it laced the feelings he was already so familiar with – rage, bitterness, the need for vengeance – with an added bite of hurt that elevated them to the power of infinity. Downside or upside, depending on which self-help book he read. Kai didn’t much care.

One way or the other, heads would roll for what had been done to him.

_And what about what you did to others? Whose heads rolled for that?_

_Shut it, Luke._

He turned the corner of an abandoned newsstand, and that was when he first felt the warm stirrings of recognition that he only ever associated with…

His steps faltered. No. They had managed to stay out of each other’s paths since their escape –  _her rescue of him_  – from 1903, and it had been long enough that the thought of inevitably bumping into her at his sister’s wedding tomorrow plagued him with both dread and anticipation.

Not for the first time, Kai asked himself what  _she_  would think about his plans – and not for the first time, he shut down that idiotic thought furiously. Like he gave a damn what she thought of him. Not anymore.

He turned on his heel, not interested in more self-torture this evening, when he recognized something else – her offensive magic spiralling all around her.

It was perverse the Pavlovian way everything in him snapped to in reaction to  _that_.

Had no one ever taught the woman how to shield properly? He wondered furiously, as he turned back. Just to see, he told himself, what tomfoolery she had got herself into now. And maybe he’d lend a hand, or maybe he’d just conjure himself some popcorn and watch.

Her casting – an aneurysm, he recognized as he drew nearer and nearer to the source, the local bar – ceased abruptly. Even before he recognized his own twin’s aura and the way it radiated fear, he had already started running.

He burst through the doors of the bar, and the first thing he saw was Bonnie seconds from smashing her head on the floor. He caught her in the nick of time, lifting her into his arms. Later he would think about how light, how  _right_ , she felt in them, only the second time he had ever held her without trying to actively hurt her. But right now all he could think of was that she had lost so much blood she was almost as pale as him, and her pulse was an erratic bird beating in her throat.

All this went through his head as he whirled to face the person responsible for this, who was using his sister as a body shield. 

He briefly locked gazes with Jo, was surprised at the relief shining from her eyes, and then shifted to a few inches from her face.

Oddly familiar pale blue eyes glittered at him with malice. “Good evening, Mr. Parker. We haven’t been properly introduced although I have made several unsuccessful attempts to seek audience with you.”

Lily Salvatore, ripper.

It was amusing really, that they had never actually met until now. It hadn’t been so long ago that they were swapping jail cells, courtesy of her son and her son’s BFF, the witch she had just injured.

Kai couldn’t even savor the supreme ironic karma of it all.

Not when Bonnie was bleeding in his arms and a  _ripper_  had his sister in the grip of her claws.

“Been a bit busy of late,” he hissed, “but you sure got my attention now.”

His mind was working double-time. He was silently casting a healing spell over Bonnie’s unconscious body; at the same time, he was trying to figure out an exit for all three of them – and coming up blank. Jo’s neck was in the grip of a madwoman and Bonnie’s lifeblood was spurting out of her throat like water from a tap. Kai was a gambling man but even he won’t risk these odds.

“You will provide me the Ascendant, Mr. Parker, or I will end the life of your pregnant sister,” Lily Salvatore warned.

Another irony. Kai had an Ascendant for her alright, just not the one she wanted.

He concentrated on the mental recitation of the spell, while holding steady eye contact with the vampire.

“You’re going to let my sister go or I will boil your blood where you stand,” he said conversationally.

She glared at him, her grip on Jo tightening. Jo’s eyes widened but they were more filled with anger than fear.

“You’ll risk your sister’s life?”

“It’s not a risk,” Kai said levelly, keeping his rage at bay, lying through his teeth and willing her not to call his bluff. Desperation was building in him. He could feel Bonnie’s essence slipping out of her. His spell was not working. Time was running out.

Lily’s brows shifted rapidly – apparently her equally odious son got that annoying habit honestly – as she visibly calculated her options; and then with a snarl, she flung Jo against the wall.

Kai’s hand reached out to break his twin’s fall – the distraction the vampire had obviously counted on to flee safely and flee, she did.

Jo slid slowly to the ground, landing on her tailbone with a little jolt. Then she was on her feet and running towards Kai and Bonnie.

He was already placing Bonnie on the floor beside him, folding her hands over her chest. She was so silent, so pale, so  _cold_. She was still breathing… but barely. The bleeding in her neck had slowed but he didn’t know whether it was from his magic or because she had already lost so much blood.

His hands were shaking.

Jo knelt on Bonnie’s other side, across from him, and looked at him with horror on her face. “Kai…”

“Help me,” he snapped as he conjured what he needed – candles, chalk, moss… They landed with a thump by his side.

“My doctor’s bag is in the car. Get that, too,” Jo said as she hurriedly started drawing the marks around Bonnie.

“I don’t need your medicine, Jo…” he hissed.

“I know you were trying to heal her while you talked to Lily and it wasn’t working,” she hissed back. “This is Sheila’s granddaughter. You do your magic. I do mine.  _Now get me my bag!_ ”

He spared a moment to call for the stupid bag. It came flying through the door of the bar, smashing the glass to land beside his sister. Then he started pouring everything he had into calling back Bonnie’s essence.

It wasn’t working.

Kai’s heart was pounding from exertion, his chanting quivering a little by the twentieth iteration. A drop of blood landed on Bonnie’s shimmery pink blouse, then another. Jo raised her head from staunching Bonnie’s neck wound and pointed a shaky hand at his nose. He touched his face instinctively and noted absentmindedly that it was wet, and his fingers were now red.

He felt faint. But whether that was from the magic he was expending or from feeling Bonnie’s life slipping away, he couldn’t tell. 

“What’s going on?”

The twins turned to look at Elena Gilbert walking into the bar with her phone in her hand and confusion on her face.

Kai stretched – more like flung – out his hand and dragged the vampire with magic. She skidded to a stop on her knees beside Bonnie.

“What the –” she yelled then froze at the sight of Bonnie. “Oh my god, Bonnie!”

“Your blood. Now.” Kai snarled but even before he finished, Elena had already torn out her veins and was pushing her wrist into Bonnie’s mouth.

Kai’s eyes were fixed on Bonnie’s face, waiting for the colour to return.

It didn’t. Her breathing was so faint now, he couldn’t hear it. He could only tell from the infinitesimally slow rise and fall of her chest. She was fading.

Jo’s phone was in her hand and he could hear, distantly like from a radio in another room, her conversation with the 911 dispatcher.

Elena pulled her wrist back, horror on her face. “Bonnie!”

“Give her more!” he shouted, pushing her wrist back down.

“It should be working by now,” Elena cried, yanking her hand back. She bit through her wrist again – the wound had healed – and returned it to Bonnie’s mouth. Blood bubbled past her lips. She should have been choking on it.

_No._

The vampire made a sound that was between a gasp and a wail. She was staring at the twins with horror on her face.

A split second later, Kai realized why.

Bonnie’s heart had stopped.

_No. No. No. No._

Jo’s hands were pushing Elena’s wrist away, and she was tipping Bonnie’s head back and breathing into her mouth. “Elena, her chest.”

In a blur of movement, Elena was on the other side, now kneeling beside Kai and bent over Bonnie with her hands locked on her chest in the style he vaguely recognised – what must have been eons ago – from Jo practising on him. 

They were counting. Jo’s face determined, Elena’s desperate.

There was a storm in his head. Water crashing and dying against the rocks beneath. He watched them with a sense of surrealism. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

_No._

The windows started cracking, tiny little slivers that they barely heard over their own bated breathing, until they shattered and burst, glass flying every which way.

Jo and Elena looked up then, wide eyes full of fear. But, Kai noted absentmindedly, they didn’t lose count, they kept going at the CPR.

Bonnie’s body spasmed under his sister’s and the vampire’s ministrations but otherwise, she was still. The delicate features of her face were frozen in a way he had never seen before, not even the times in the 1994 prison world that he had spied sleeping, in the months before he made his presence known to her, when he thought his fascination with her had only lied in the fact that she was the first living, breathing person he had seen in nearly two decades, and his ticket out of his hell.

 _Bonnie_.

The upturned tables slid across the room, smashing into the walls.

“Kai!” his sister shouted. “Control!”

He climbed to his feet, his hands rising to grip his head, his fingers tugging at his hair. The chairs climbed up with him, into the ceiling and bounced off it, smashing into the ground. A storm was rising in the bar, wind whipping from the centre and catching the debris around it in a narrow cyclone.

“ _Get out!”_  Jo screamed.

No. He couldn’t leave Bonnie. Not again. Not this time.

As if she could read his mind, his sister shouted, “You’re not helping her by being here, Kai. You have to go!”

She was right, a small sane part of his head realized, watching that cyclone get wider and wider. Very soon the debris would be smashing against the people that were fighting for Bonnie’s life.

 _Bonnie_.

He stared at her tightly shut lids and it hit Kai like a moving train would hit a jumper – the thought that it was very possible he would never see those fiery green eyes open again.

He turned on his heel and fled.


	9. it is never over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the past, Bonnie and Matt stage a break in. in the present, she rolls up her sleeves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I made a few changes to the names of some minor but significant OC characters in this story.
> 
> The character that was previously known as Douglas (Doug) Parkinson is now Quentin Parrish. (Yes, it's a shout out to Quentin from The Magicians. :D)
> 
> The family of Ghiacci is now Genova, and Quentin Ghiacci is now Isach Genova.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

It was mere hours to the nuptial ceremony between Jo Laughlin and Alaric Saltzman was to commence and Caroline Forbes was sending frantic texts to Bonnie and Matt asking about the whereabouts of the floral arrangements.

Bonnie texted back something about a flat tire and turned off her phone before Caroline blew it up.

Sitting at the passenger’s side of Matt Donovan’s truck, she threw her friend a wry look that he returned.

“If Kai or the heretics don’t kill me, then Caroline will for sure,” Bonnie muttered and Matt laughed.

He pulled the truck into a short term parking slot in front of Kai’s apartment building. Bonnie stared up at the nondescript, standard building with some surprise. She hadn’t imagined Kai living somewhere so… ordinary. Not that she had given it much thought, that is. But if she had, she probably would have imagined his home having at least a chimney – somewhere to send the smoke from his cauldron.

She shook her head, laughing silently at herself as she and Matt hopped out of the car.

The flowers lay beside Matt’s bag of weapons, and together they both selected the most practical ones for the task at hand – a gun with wooden bullets, tiny Molotov cocktails of vervain water and gasoline, and a mini-bow that he could put under his jacket. He wanted to take the more powerful crossbow until Bonnie reminded him that neither of them were vampires and it would be hard, without compulsion, to explain to Kai’s neighbours why a man the size of a linebacker was lurking around their corridors with a loaded weapon.

Bonnie didn’t take any weapons. She had her magic, and the only weapon she wanted was her missing knife.

With one last guilty glance at the flowers, she led the way to the front door.

Getting through the security code at the main entrance door was tricky. Bonnie couldn’t pick it in view of security cams, nor think of a discrete spell that won’t do permanent damage to the door; so Matt had had to punch a random apartment number and pretend to be a delivery guy. Compared to that, getting through Kai’s apartment door was a breeze. No cams in the passageway took off the pressure of discretion. A quick detection spell identified an empty apartment and a weak boundary ward. So weak that she disabled it with a simple power spike. The lock was a joke, nothing compared to hot wiring a car. She pulled out a hairpin, grinning slightly at the stunned look on Matt’s face.

He recovered quickly, and moved to shield her, his eyes scanning for nosy neighbours.

“Where did Bonnie Bennett learn how to pick a lock?” He whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Bonnie twisted the pin with her teeth and placed it inside the lock, and wiggled expertly. “I was stuck on an empty planet for months with no magic, Matt. Kicking down doors doesn’t come naturally to a girl my size. So I learnt some new skills.”

The lock clicked and the door fell open. Bonnie stepped in, then turned back in surprise when Matt still lingered outside. He was staring at the apartment door across from them with a frown on his face.

She touched his hand, and when he looked at her, she raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure but… I saw a shadow pass across the peephole. I think someone might have spotted us.”

She cursed softly.

He shook his head quickly. “I said I’m not sure. Probably imagined it.”

“Better safe than sorry,” she murmured. She whispered a quick  _Ocludus_  in the general vicinity of the other door.

“What was that?”

“A distraction spell. It’ll last an hour. We’ll be long gone by then.”

Gently, she shut the door and they were fully in Kai Parker’s apartment easy as pie.

It said something about the psyche of the resident that he was all but inviting danger into his home. And not, Bonnie told herself, that he was brave. Or even that he was stupid. But that he knew that there was nothing outside that could be more dangerous than himself.

She shuddered to imagine what Kai would think – what would Kai  _do_  if he ever found out that she broke into his apartment.

While driving, they had spoken to Tyler and he had confirmed that Kai, and the rest of the Gemini coven were at the venue. So Matt and Bonnie expected his house to be empty. Still, she stretched out her senses again as they stepped further inside.

He wasn’t there – no one was. But she could sense magic lingering in the air. Casting had been done there, recently. Nothing potent, nothing remarkable. Just ordinary magic – levitation, cleaning; it even seemed like someone used a spell to fix a last-minute wardrobe malfunction.Day to day magic, done casually, carelessly even and it brushed against the edges of Bonnie’s aura and hit her with an unexpected pang of wistfulness.

“You said some Gemini witches were here?” She asked Matt.

“Three at least. Looked like family,” he said, distractedly as he made a beeline towards the large screen TV and complicated game centre taking up most of the space in the living room.

The interior of the flat was furnished in the typical bachelor pad style – basic monochromatic furniture. The small kitchen, which they had to walk through to get into the rest of the house, was equipped with a variety of gadgets, a lot of which Bonnie didn’t even recognise. She lingered a little in it, remembering her last Thanksgiving dinner. Kai had cooked it. It had been a surprisingly good meal, but she had been too on edge to enjoy it, half-trusting, half-wary about the deal she had made with him.

He got her to trust him towards the end, she realized now, bitterly. It must have made the literal and figurative gutting all the more sweeter for him.

She frowned at Matt’s awed inspection of the entertainment centre. “We need to hurry. Find something of Kai’s for the spell.”

As she had explained in the car, since the Ascendant belonged to the Parkers, and Kai personally as their leader, a locator spell would need something of his. Blood was always the best choice but a little hair would do. 

Going a bit shamefaced, Matt nodded. “Should we split up?” he suggested.

“No,” Bonnie said firmly.

There were two bedrooms in the flat. They chose one by random and stepped in.

Matt whistled under his breath. “Woah.”

“Woah, exactly,” Bonnie murmured.

The room had clearly been magically reconstructed. There was no other way that its internal dimensions or the large elaborate furniture pieces contained within could have otherwise fit into its physical space.

Bonnie felt slightly ill standing inside it.

“Convenient,” Matt said. “Wonder why they couldn’t all have super-sized their hotel rooms?”

“It’s complicated, and some people might just not prefer to do this.”

“Maybe. But it’s also fun, isn’t it? It’s kinda easy to forget that,” he said with a shrug. “We get so used to always using magic in the middle of some war or the other, we forget that sometimes magic is just  _cool_.”

Bonnie hummed vaguely, and left the room quickly, Matt behind her. He might find the room fascinating, but the dimensional alterations made her slightly nauseous.Also, she doubted that there would be anything of Kai’s there.

The second room was clearly his. If the plain starkness didn’t tell her, the trace of his magic, powerful and capricious as the man itself, seemed to reach through her skin to touch her own power. It made her blood thrum. The memory of 1903, when they channeled each other, suddenly overwhelmed her.

“You OK, Bonnie?” Matt asked, stopping halfway into the room to stare, puzzled, at where she hesitated by the doorway.

She smiled thinly, forcing herself to shrug off the momentary shock. “Sure,” she said as normally as she could, and stepped into Kai Parker’s room.

There were no structural alterations that she could see or sense. Which, she supposed, made sense. After almost two decades of his life being trapped in a magical dimension, he would probably find the thought of magical enhancements or alterations to his physical environment as nauseating as Bonnie had found that guest room. Rather, his room was sparsely furnished –just a bed and a low table in the centre of the room – ideal, she thought immediately, for sitting cross-legged on the floor and casting.There were two pillows placed neatly beside the table, and she pictured Kai sitting across a random witch, doing magic.

That pang of longing shook through her once more. She allowed herself a moment to imagine what it felt like – growing up with magic, being surrounded by witches she could practice with, learning difficult spells, honing her craft, or merely studying along with. She had never had that. Her grandmother had died too soon. The brief time she had ‘trained’ Liv Parker, Bonnie had been a magic-less Anchor.

Then she snapped out of it. Someday, she’d find a witch community that wasn’t working against her and/or trying to use her and she would integrate into them. She would learn from them, make allies, and maybe even friends. The Gemini were out of the question. She didn’t envy  _any_  of the Parkers nor their medieval twin-murdering cult.

Matt had already headed to the bathroom, so Bonnie had no choice but to rifle through the bedroom. There was no dresser, so she checked the wardrobe. A few clothes hung there, and she wished she knew a spell that could just call loose strands of hair to her. Instead, she had to carefully run her hands over the fabric of his clothes, cringing all the while. His scent lingered on them, even the clean ones and she felt her face heating up.

This was so awkward. It all felt so invasive, touching his clothes like this. Then Bonnie laughed to herself. She didn’t feel strange breaking into the man’s house to steal his family’s magical artefact but examining his clothes made her feel guilty?

Of course there wasn’t a single strand to be found, she realized when she was through. He probably did a scouring spell every-time he left his house. Kai Parker, Gemini leader and scion of a generations-old coven, was not going to leave random bits of himself lying around for some interloping witch to find. That was a rookie mistake. The kind of thing mundanes did thoughtlessly all the time. But no seasoned witch half their salt would leave such a powerful ingredient for any number of personal spells – anything from locator spells to powerful jinxes – lying around.

“Any luck?” Matt asked, popping out of the bathroom.

“Not yet. You?”

“Nothing. Everything’s so clean, it looks like it was magically bleached.” Which made Bonnie laugh because she had just been thinking the same thing. “I’ll go check the living room. Maybe there’s something there?”

More like he wanted to scrutinize the game console more closely, Bonnie thought, turning her head away so he couldn’t see her roll her eyes.

“Leave the door open, Matt,” she conceded. There were too many horror stories – including the ones she had lived through – that taught that splitting in enemy territory was always a bad idea.

Only Kai wasn’t an enemy, still. Was he? Bonnie wavered, uncertain. She didn’t know. And she was too tired of worrying about it. About him. His plans for her. If she needed to watch her back. Once she got hold of the Ascendant and destroyed it, then she’d let it go. Until then, she couldn’t drop her guard.

She glanced around the room, her eyes falling on the bed. She had avoided looking at it directly all this while but now she couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was hard not to imagine the man himself lying down on it.

There was one particular dream.

_“I was spooning you earlier and I may have sleep-siphoned you.”_

_Gah!_  Bonnie yelled mentally. She had been certain that she had scoured the memories of that particular sleep encounter from her brain. Rubbing her suddenly damp palms against her jeans, and grimacing, she marched up to the bed and briskly lifted the pillow propped against the headboard. She ran her hands over it. It was cool to touch, and it smelled even more strongly of him. His scent was not unpleasant  _at all_  and, her whole face was burning now.

When her finger snagged against a single short brown strand, Bonnie almost cried in relief.

“Missed one, Kai,” she crowed.

“Found something, Bonnie?” Matt called.

“Yes, I’ll be right there.”

Matt was standing by the low corner bookshelf, looking through a book when she stepped into the parlour and she was feeling guilty for misjudging him until she realized that he was holding the book upside-down.

“Can we do the spell here?” he asked, dropping the book quickly and walking up to her eagerly. “Or do we go to your place?”

Bonnie hadn’t exactly packed a magic bag but an idea suddenly popped into her head. She went to the kitchen pantry, and she found exactly what she expected. Arranged neatly in clearly marked containers on the shelves and DIY-organizers were bunches of candles, a bowl of incense, a bottle of quicksilver, even a rolled-up bunch of thin maps on scrolls, that looked like if they had been conjured en masse. In other words, she found pretty much everything she needed for the locator spell. Or any other spell she wanted to cast, as a matter of fact, she realized, staring at all the assortment of ingredients on display.

What else would one expect to find in a witch’s pantry?

It hit Bonnie for the third time. That sense of forsakenness, of being disconnected from her natural habitat and left to float adrift. She had been cut off from the witch community all her life. And now here was one ready-made all but staring her in the face. She had always believed that her grandmother had good reasons for going solo and teaching Bonnie to do the same. But right now, arranging Kai’s magical ingredients in his house that was filled with magic... Bonnie wondered if her grandmother might have been wrong about this, at least.

For the third time, she shrugged off her melancholy thoughts and focused on the task at hand. She took a map and spread it out on the kitchen counter, then arranged the rest of the things quietly while Matt drew up two bar stools for them. The strand of hair slid into a crucible. A trickle of Bonnie’s blood and a  _fyre_ spell transmuted it. Carefully, she magically extracted a single drop and let it fall on a corner of the map. 

She sat on the stool and started chanting softly.

The first time Bonnie casted, the blood shivered, like if it was boiling, then it vanished.

She blinked at the map in shock.

Then she repeated the spell twice more – almost completely depleting the contents of the crucible to be sure – before she stopped.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked finally. He had been silent all through out, staring at her magic with a mixture of fascination and wariness.

She spoke slowly, still struggling to grasp this new development. “It’s gone.”

“Gone? As in gone to a Prison World? I thought that wasn’t how it worked,” he asked, confused.

“No. I mean yes, you are right. That’s not how the Ascendant works. It doesn’t follow to the Prison World. It can’t travel between worlds so it’s always on this side while there’s another one on that side. Only…” Bonnie frowned at the empty map. “The Ascendant on  _our_ side is… gone.”

Matt leaned forward, staring at the map. “I don’t understand, Bon.”

“This spell is telling me that it’s been destroyed, completely and leaving no trace.”

“So Kai destroyed it after he sent Lily back. Makes perfect sense to me. He’d be the last person to want those monsters out,” Matt said reasonably.

Too reasonably, Bonnie thought, schooling her face so her irritation didn’t show. There was nothing reasonable about Kai Parker when he wanted to get even with someone.

She should know. She had the scar to prove it.

And it was that memory that fuelled her as she grabbed a knife, slashed her palm – ignoring Matt’s sharp inhale – and sent the spray of blood into the most powerful revelation spell that she knew.

A gust of wind swept through the sealed apartment, the lights flickered twice and she felt the reverberation of the spell send a tremor through her bones.

Matt sprang to his feet. “ _What was that?_ ”

“The Gemini love their cloaking spells,” Bonnie murmured calmly, reaching for a paper towel to clean her bloody hand. “If Kai cloaked the Ascendant, then I just uncloaked it.”  _And everything else cloaked within a hundred feet from here_. But there was no need telling Matt that.

“So the tracking spell will work now?”

“Unless it’s really been destroyed. Let’s see, shall we?”

Using the very last drop from the crucible, she casted the spell for the last time.

And for the very last time, the blood boiled and vanished. 

“It’s settled then,” Matt said, relieved. “Kai destroyed it.”

Shivering slightly, Bonnie stared hard at the map, while she mentally repeated what she had told Matt.

The Ascendant couldn’t travel between worlds. So there was one on this side to transport the bearer into the Prison World and another in the Prison World to transport the bearer out.

“The heretics don’t need this Ascendant to escape. They need one on their side. They  _have_  one on their side. It would be on the ground, right where Kai and I left.”

“But what happens to the Ascendant on that side if the one on this side is destroyed?” Matt asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Can you search for it?”

“Matt, I can’t track an object from another dimension.”

“Maybe not with this spell but some other spell, right?”

“Matt…”

“I mean.” He snorted softly. “Bonnie, this is  _magic_  we’re talking about.”

She opened her mouth to contradict him with a laugh – then stopped. That was the great thing about Matt, Bonnie thought. He might not know the answers but he sure knew the right questions to ask.

“You’re right, I guess,” she said slowly, thinking. “With the right tools, practically any kind of spell is  _theoretically_  possible. The problem would be the amount of mojo it would take.”  _Expression._  “Way more than I have, I’m afraid.” She made a face.

He saw it. “What is it?”

Bonnie shrugged. “This talk of mojo – not having enough. It reminds me of…” She trailed off. When he kept staring at her with puzzled earnestness, she gave him a small, sad smile. “The times I didn’t have magic. How powerless I felt.”

His face lightened as something like realisation seemed to dawn on it. “Maybe that’s what’s causing your nightmares, Bonnie? Remember how it was to feel powerless.”

She smarted at that. “No, Matt, I don’t think so.”

“Bonnie…”

His face was filling with deep concern and she shied away from it, hunching her shoulders slightly as she stared back at the map. But she wasn’t seeing it; her gaze had turned inwards, reflecting on his words even though she had denied them. Was Matt right? Had all this really been for nothing? Her fears? Her bad dreams? Was all this just a way of her wanting to reclaim control?

She supposed that she would probably be feeling something like embarrassment right now, but she was still too tense.

Lily Salvatore was back in the prison world. The Ascendant was destroyed. Kai Parker… He had told her they were even. And before that – and as always when she remembered this, Bonnie felt her insides churn with confusion –  _he had saved her life_.

Maybe, just maybe, Kai had really let 1903 go?

Could it really be all over?

What were her dreams, then? Vestiges of post-traumatic stress, like Jo Parker kept insisting?

Perhaps she should call the good doctor for the shrink’s number after all.

“Bonnie,” Matt said very gently, and she felt his warm hand on her arm. “The Ascendant on this side is gone. No one’s going to get them out. And they can’t get out themselves, remember? They need to know the spell and to have Bennett blood.” He squeezed her arm. “It’s over, Bonnie. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

The spell.

Bonnie sat up so suddenly, she felt her spine crack.

She and Kai had escaped under the Northern Lights, a circle of heretics around them. Any one of them could have heard the spell.

As for Bennett blood…

There was a whole vat of it in its ancient, most powerful form in a tomb in Nova Scotia.

“Bonnie?”

Bonnie didn’t hear Matt. She was too busy forcing herself to remain calm, to deliberately think this through before panicking.

Surely, if the heretics had been aware of Qetsiya’s blood, wouldn’t they have escaped the Prison World long ago? Unless they had only recently found out… from Kai.

Information he gave under duress?

Or information he had given up willingly with the hope that they would break free and take him along?

Or…

Bonnie remembered the nightmarish details of her second trip to the 1903 prison world. By the end of it, she had been exhausted. Her magic couldn’t sustain Kai’s revival spell. Her own healing spell had failed and her wound had re-opened.Only the power of Expression, the magic she got from channelling Kai, and her sheer force of will had kept her alive long enough to do the Ascending spell.

She sat warm and safe in Kai’s kitchen, but she felt herself very far away. She could almost taste the snow falling against her lips, the sound of Kai’s voice chanting, the warmth of his fingers where it tangled with hers around the Ascendant, the coldness of her blood-soaked shirt. The smell of iron from her blood as it dripped into the snow…

Her blood-soaked shirt… her blood…  _dripping into the snow_ …

_It’s never over._

Bonnie stood up from her stool abruptly, and whirled at Matt, horror rising in her.

“Bonnie, what is it?” he asked, startled.

“I left blood behind,” she whispered. “They heard me say the spell.

“Matt, they’re already out.”

* * *

**June 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

During the drive from the airport, Damon eventually managed to touch base with Stefan. Assuming she hadn’t got any of Bonnie’s messages yet, Stefan would bring Caroline up to speed. Matt sent them a text that he had got through to Tyler. They all agreed to convene at the Salvatore’s Boarding house the next morning to discuss strategy. Damon still hadn’t figured out exactly what his Plan B would entail but, in his usual Damon way, he was pretty optimistic.

He dropped Bonnie off at the off-campus apartment that she and Caroline had moved into after sophomore year. During the previous summer, the university had relocated several students out of their campus dorms to temporary housing, in order to do the construction upgrades requested by the new owners. The three girls were supposed to have moved back to their old and improved dorm for the Fall semester; but when Bonnie and Caroline returned from Europe without Elena, it just hadn’t felt right to them. So they moved to this place, which was just near enough to campus that they still felt like a part of the community, but far away that they could practice what Caroline liked to call their ‘alternative lifestyle’ without raising too many eyebrows. For Caroline, that involved nocturnal hunting and the occasional trip to the bleeders. For Bonnie that involved practicing magic that could cause extremely localized climate changes.

Bonnie hadn’t spoken directly to Caroline since she left Portland but there was a welcome home note on the fridge and an actual apple pie in the oven.

Bonnie grinned happily because it was  _good_  to be back in their cosy little place, tastefully furnished with Caroline’s eye for colours and patterns and Bonnie’s magic creating some exciting finishing touches. Dropping her stuff at the foot of her bed, she threw herself with her arms spread out on it, kicked off her shoes and exhaled.

It had been a nightmare finding a place that they both agreed on but when they found this place, they had fallen in love with it at once. To Caroline, it meant growth, and independence. It meant those for Bonnie too. But even more, it meant escape. She had taken everything worth taking from her father’s house and moved it here, then put up the house for sale. She had not quite sworn to herself that she would never step foot in Mystic Falls again – that was extreme, especially with the ties she still kept with Matt, and Tyler, and so many others she grew up with and loved. But she had vowed not to have a reason to stay too long, and certainly not to get tangled up in Salvatore and supernatural feuds.

But this was different.

_So you come rushing back to save the box of tools that you call friends?_

Kai’s mocking words echoed in her head and she felt the same flash of anger rise in her again. He had no idea what he was talking about and she hated that his words – the entirety of the man himself – affected her so badly. In so many aggravating ways.

Sighing, she rolled out of bed, stepped into the bathroom and, despite the cool Virginia evening, had a cold shower. She tried – and failed – not to let certain memories plague her but they were like the contents of a Pandora’s box. After a year of keeping that night shut tightly in the box of her mind, the trip to Portland had slid the key into the lock and turned it; Caroline’s insidious phone call had creaked the lid open; and the last encounter with Kai Parker in the Saltzmans’ kitchen had blown the lid off completely.

Or, Bonnie thought crossly, lifting her right wrist to the spray and glaring at the band, maybe this was the culprit. Maybe he really had put a hex on her. But even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t believe it.Still, first thing that morning – well, first thing after the meeting at the Boarding house – she was going to find what it meant and a spell to take it off.

And now, her head was filled with the memory of that  _smirk_  when he said that he might have hexed her.

After  _several_  cold showers, she finally felt sane enough to slip into her sensible pajamas. She walked with stocking feet to the kitchen and made a cup of hot chocolate. She drank most of it as she slowly worked through most of the apple pie, only stopping when her eyes started drooping. Then she packed up the leftovers and went into her pantry to find the ingredients she needed to make a very special potion.

She had got the recipe from the two witches she had made friends with in Europe. It was an antidote to bad dreams… and unwanted memories.

She measured carefully, poured the mix of herbs and rock into her tiny mortar and ground them into powder.

_His chest pressed against her back, hands on her waist, rings digging into her skin, and something harder digging into her ass. He buried his face in her hair and hummed a little against her scalp while her hands shook slightly over the coffee machine and she steeled herself to say it_ _…_

Her hands were steady as she poured the powder into her chocolate. She started lifting the cup to her lips…

…and tipped its contents into the sink.

She made another cup of chocolate, and spiked it with a little vodka. Enough for a long night’s sleep only, not a bad hangover the next morning… certainly not enough to suppress the memories that she had been running from for the better part of a year.

Not anymore, though. It was time to wake up. Figuratively, that was.

She washed up and wiped her hands, and then she had to wipe her face which had suddenly, stupidly become wet and she padded off to bed.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

Bonnie’s sense of panic was so immense, so immediate that Matt’s unworried face startled her.

“Bonnie, that’s a pretty big conclusion.”

She gaped. “Did you hear anything I said? They have my blood and they know the spell. The Ascendant fell on the snow when Kai and I left there. They had everything they needed. They may’ve been out for days!”

“Then why didn’t they meet up with Lily Salvatore?” he asked reasonably. “Why leave her wandering around Mystic Falls, desperately missing them? All they had to do was mention the name ‘Salvatore’ to anyone in town and they’d have found her within a day.”

The thought gave her pause. “I don’t know.”

“Lily’s about the only thing that would bring them to Mystic Falls, anyway. If – and, mind you, I think it’s a pretty big if – these heretics got out, they’d be more likely to go West to Oregon where the Gemini coven is…”

His voice trailed off as Bonnie’s panic finally caught up with him. They stared at each other in dismay.

“The Gemini coven isn’t in Oregon,” she said unnecessarily, her voice rising. “They are here in Mystic Falls. To attend Jo’s wedding. They’ve been gathering here for days. And,” her mind was racing now, making the connections faster than she cared to, “more importantly,  _Kai_  is here. They don’t need to go after the entire coven. They just need to kill him and the rest of the coven dies. And the prison worlds collapse, yes but perhaps the heretics think destroying the Gemini is worth sacrificing Lily. Oh my god!” She gasped. “We need to call him, Matt. We need to warn him. All of them!”

She started reaching for her phone, and then she let out a soft scream when she realized it was pointless. She didn’t have his number. Why would she?

But Matt had pulled out his phone and was already dialling. “I got his number when I was running around, getting their coven people settled in,” he said in answer to the unspoken question.

Bonnie waited, standing on her toes and straining her ears. Kai’s phone was ringing, but he wasn’t picking. It rang and rang then it went into an automated voicemail.

“Let’s call everyone else,” Matt said, and his calm voice anchored Bonnie a little. “I’ll call Alaric, Tyler, Stefan. You call Elena, Caroline, and Damon.”

“We can call and walk at the same time, too,” she declared as she strode towards the door.

Matt rushed ahead, passing her. He was reaching out to touch the knob, when Bonnie felt it – a spike in the air that said Danger.

Her hand stretched out in a silent  _Motus_ , and she pulled Matt back to her side a split second before the door flung inwards violently.

Standing in the doorway were three people – a man that looked partly Native American and an olive-skinned brunette standing side by side; towering behind both was a tall, auburn-haired man. They were dressed in long, hooded red robes; their faces were veined and hungry; and their auras pulsed with a strange, repulsive but – to Bonnie – horrifyingly familiar rhythm.

Heretics.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Portland_

The ringing of her cell jolted Jo Saltzman out of sleep.

Because she had spent over two decades responding to life-and-death late night phone calls, she didn’t grab the offending object and fling it across the room – like any other sane nursing mother of twins who was catching up on some much needed sleep would have done. Instead, she calmly swore like a sailor, enough to stir the man sleeping beside her, and then checked her phone to see the suicidal fool that would dare disturb her rest.

The name seemed to jump at her, and she sat up in bed at once. “Dad? What’s going on?”

She and Joshua Parker may have reconciled over the little matter of attempted filicide but they were not exactly on late-night social calls terms so clearly, something was wrong.

“Where is your brother?”

Her heart jumped. “I’m guessing you mean Kai?”

Joshua sighed heavily. Wherever his children had got their snark from, it wasn’t from him. “I need to speak to him urgently.”

“Have you checked his place? Because if he’s not in Portland, then I have no idea where he is.”

“Jo, this is important.”

“Honestly, Dad, I saw him this morning and he didn’t say anything to make me think he was planning on leaving town soon.”

“Do you think he’s gone to Virginia? For the heretics?” Joshua cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I believe Ms. Bennett and the vampire returned there today.”

Jo raised an eyebrow. So her father had picked up on  _that_.

“Jo, what’s going on?” Alaric mumbled from beside her.

She shhhd him. “Nothing important. Go back to bed. You need your rest.” He was on night-duty again.

Murmuring sleepily, he turned around and hopefully, nodded back off.

“Jo, are you still there?”

“Coming, Dad,” Jo muttered, as she dragged herself out of bed. She went to the corner of the room, far enough that she could talk a little louder without waking her husband.

“Last we spoke, Kai mentioned the renegade shapeshifters. Maybe he’s gone to NOLA to consult with the Southern Court? Then there’s the vampire situation in Brooklyn…”

Even to her own ears, her words sounded unconvincing.

“Our Envoys and the Hunters have got the Brooklyn situation in check. And while I would very much like to think that Kai is in NOLA for entirely different reasons –all this talk of the Augustine Society resurrecting, and the Nine Covens allying with them, should be of grave concern to us all – I sincerely doubt that. You’re covering for him, Josette, just like you did when you were both younger. I would have thought you’d have learnt your lesson about that by now.”

A short, uncomfortable silence followed that.

Then Joshua sighed again.

“Whatever means you have to reach your brother, do so quickly. I won’t stand him going after his personal vendetta and risking the coven.”

Jo tensed. Joshua Parker was head Councilman and informal peacekeeper between the council, the elders, and their Praetor. That peacekeeping role was vital and his threats carried weight.

“Kai won’t do anything rash. If he’s in Virginia – and  _I don’t know if he is, OK? –_  but if he is, he has a plan.”

“It’d still be an unnecessary risk. Especially now that I strongly believe that our real enemy is not in Virginia, but here in Oregon.”

Jo was fully awake now, her grip on the phone tightening. “Dad, what do you mean by that?”

“Benjamin Martin. Victor Briggs. Gabriel formerly O’Sullivan. Judith Stewart. Do those names not mean anything to you, Jo?”

“No, they do not.”

“Are you sure, Jo? Because these three...”

“You should speak to the Praetor,” she said and her voice had gone stern, formal. “In a situation of this nature, you are required to provide all information…”

“Don’t quote rules to me, Jo.” He snapped. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

“Have  _you_?”

He exhaled noisily, clearly irritated. “I have my reasons to wait until my theories are proven–or not. I do not want to cause a panic. You obviously know more than you want to admit so I advise you to do the same.”

Jo was silent.

“Whatever you choose to tell your brother, I still need to talk to the Praetor and soon. Let him know this the moment you get off the phone with me.”

“I’ll do my best to reach him, Dad but I can’t guarantee anything.”

“You doing your best, Jo,” his voice had become suddenly fond, “is all the guarantee I need.”

They said their goodbyes and Jo put her phone down. For the first time, she noticed the time. It was three am. It was already early morning in Virginia. Montana was earlier still.

Donning her dressing gown, and slipping her phone into her pocket, she quietly left the bedroom.

The house was quiet. The twins were still sleeping deeply. Even Liv’s usual snores were silent as Jo passed by her door. The study was on the first floor and she carefully made her way down the stairs in the dark.

She turned on the desk-light, then went to a bookshelf and searched through the thick tomes of medical reference books until she pulled out a specific volume. She opened it carefully, and revealed – not pages – but a hollowed-out centre. It was a trick book. And hidden in it was a slim and faded spiral notebook. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. A list of names.

Seven names precisely. And the first three names were already crossed out.

_M. Linus_

_V. Briggs._

_G. O’Sullivan._

Holding the book open with one hand, she walked to her desk and got a pen. With a careful hand, she crossed out the fourth name on the list.

_J. Stewart._

Jo’s finger rested against the first name beneath these, pressing hard enough to feel the worn paper yield. Indecision raged inside her as she felt a swirl of emotions staring at the list.

J. Stewart.

Jo’s finger rested against the name beneath these, pressing hard enough to feel the worn paper yield. Indecision raged inside her.

She made up her mind.

The burner phone was hidden in another trick book. She waited impatiently for it to power up, then scrolled down the contacts until she found  _P. Lang,_ and started typing her message.

* * *

**May 2013**

_Whitmore_

The three heretics were as shocked to find Bonnie and Matt at the other side of the door as Bonnie and Matt had been to see them. It was a momentary advantage that Bonnie had the presence of mind to seize.

“ _Immobiliza_!” She cried, one hand throwing a hex, while the other stretched up and drew a protective shield over her and Matt.

Her spell hit the three squarely and they froze in place. 

Matt was already loading his crossbow, and he shot two arrows in quick succession right into the hearts of the two in front. The third arrow was aimed for the head of the tall redhead but it never hit its target.

Because the man had broken through the spell and charged, leaping over the heads of his companions with the super-speed and agility of a well-fed vampire.

Bonnie threw out another freezing spell but another figure leaped in front of her, catching the spell,  _absorbing_ the spell and then charging at  _Bonnie_.

Her weight slammed Bonnie right into the ground and Bonnie pushed out an  _Immolata_ with her mind. The heretic reeled back, holding her head as she squirmed on her haunches and Bonnie tried to scramble out from under her, yelling out  _Immolatas_ after  _Immolatas_ with rapid succession.

Across the room there was a small explosion, and a shout and she guessed that Matt must have thrown one of the vervain bombs.

 _Thank goodness he’s holding his own,_ Bonnie thought with relief _. Now all I have to do is incendia this creature_ …

The  _Incendia_  spell hovered in the air, suspended an inch from the heretic’s eyes, which were glowing gold. She was smiling at Bonnie.

And that was when Bonnie realized, with a thrill of dismay, that the heretic had not been squirming with pain but shaking with laughter.

“Your magic is delectable,” she said, her eyes shimmering with familiar gold whorls as Bonnie literally watched her magic being absorbed by the creature.

Bonnie stopped casting, frozen with shock as she realized, remembered –  _and all that was holy, how could she have been so stupid to forget?_ – that everything she just did had only served to make this creature stronger. How, she thought, terror-mounting, do you fight something that turns your own power against you?

“Pray do not cease on our account,” said another voice above Bonnie and she looked up to see the dark-haired man standing over his companion. “My friends and I were just starting to get entertained.”

The redhead appeared beside them. All three heretics were accounted for.

“Where’s Matt?” Bonnie cried.

The three heretics exchanged glances, then turned to give her identical, malicious smiles. Two of those smiles, she noticed with horror, bared sharp teeth stained with red. The redhead lifted his hand and curled his fingers into a fist.

Immediately, Bonnie felt her throat close, as if an invisible hand had wrapped around it and was choking her. She couldn’t breathe and her vision was rapidly dimming.

She tried to push back with magic, but the more she pushed, the tighter the grip. She didn’t need to see the three pairs of eyes glimmering with goldto know that once more, her magic was being used against her but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t  _not_ struggle. 

Everything was dim now. She slumped to her side, still gasping.

Where was Matt?

A shadow was looming over her, and then suddenly, strong arms pulled her into a sitting position and she felt cold breath at her throat.

_No!_

Panic and disgust shattered through her and she tried to struggle – with magic, with physical strength, but she couldn’t. She was weak, too weak.

Matt. Was he all right?

The edge of sharp teeth grazed her skin. She didn’t even have energy to scream, just brace herself for the agony of blood and magic being stolen from her.

Then she felt a lightening of pressure as if someone had hurled her attacker back.

She fell back to the floor, her head hitting hard. Darkness came rushing, much as she struggled against it. But not before she heard their last words.

“Not this one. Remember our sire.”

“A taste. Bennett magic. By god, her Expression…”

“Be steadfast then. Frederick, contain your sister.”

“And the other?”

“He’s already dead.”

_Matt!_

Bonnie’s own mental scream was the last thing she heard before she went under.

* * *

**June 2014**

_Mystic Falls_

When Bonnie woke up, it took her a few minutes to remember that she was no longer in Portland, no longer in Jo’s and Alaric’s white-picketed house, no longer in the same vicinity as Kai Parker.

She had no idea how long she had slept but if the light pouring through her thin curtains were any indication, it had been an incredibly long time. The vodka had done its job and she didn’t even feel the slightest bit woozy. For a long moment, she stared blankly at the ceiling.

She was home. She said it aloud and then again, in a happier voice. She was glad to be back.

She had reached out for help but to no avail. In a twisted way, she should be thankful for that. If the Gemini had agreed to help, and swooped in to save the day, she’d carry the burden of being the one to cast the deciding vote that day in the War Room when they had argued about petitioning to Portland for help. She hadn’t just been the one to break the tie – she had also been the one whose ‘objectivity’ had convinced everyone who opposed to agree. Agree that they didn’t need the Gemini coven.

She could admit to herself now that – despite her efforts to ignore it – the insidious thought had been creeping up on her. The thought that she had steered her friends, her comrades-in-arms to speak, wrong not because of an honest mistake but purely because of her –

-  _past, feud, unresolved feelings for Kai Parker –_

own comfort. At least this way, she didn’t have on her conscience the deaths of all the people that had been killed between then and now. The Gemini didn’t help now, and they won’t have helped then.

So yes, she was thankful that this was not one more burden for her to carry.

And if once more the stakes of a looming supernatural war depended solely on her? She was fine with that. Since Sheila Bennett’s passing, there was only one person Bonnie Bennett had ever been able to depend upon and that was Bonnie Bennett. She’d deal with this problem like she’d dealt with countless others in the past. Sooner or later, she was going to fix this, and then the debt she owed this town would be paid once and for all.

She got up with a little hop and stretched like a cat. Then she padded to the bathroom, freshened up, and returned to her room to attack the luggage that she hadn’t bothered unpacking the day before.

It didn’t take too long and when she was done, she picked up the Gemini Grimoires and took them to the reading table by the window. She cracked her knuckles, then cracked open one of the volumes.

Once again, she felt overwhelmed with the wealth of knowledge contained within. The Gemini might have been reticent about recording any information about Heretics, syphons and Prison Worlds, but they had detailed out information about practically every other supernatural phenomena. Bonnie could spend months poring through any one of these books and not nearly be done.

Today however, she looked for information about vampire weaknesses. She remembered what  _he_  had told her about how vervain worked against the heretics – by dampening their vampiric aura and their primary source of magic – and she wondered if there was anything else that could have that effect. An elemental by its own nature, not constructed and spelled like one of the Gilbert devices. She already knew that holy water, garlic and crosses were useless. But she wondered if there weren’t any real-life equivalents to these elements of popular fiction.

An hour later, and she was almost drowning in information. The tome she was reading was titled  _Medeis Bestia_ –a study of supernatural creatures.Apparently the supernatural demography was a lot more varied than Bonnie had realized. Vampires, werewolves, and recently dragons were the extent of her own knowledge. But now she skimmed through an index that included immortal faeries, banshees, succubae, and so much more. The Gemini seemed to regard these creatures with a spectrum that spanned from mild suspicion to outright hatred.

And vampires, Bonnie realized with disquiet, were very near on the ‘outright hatred’ side of that spectrum.

As much as she realized that her own life became considerably more difficult when vampires entered into it, Bonnie still held onto her objectivity about them – still believed that she was supposed to judge vampires based on their actions, not their natures – just like every other sentient creature in existence.

The Gemini did not.

If this tome was any reflection of their beliefs, vampires were high on the list of  _Nefandus Bestia_ [1] – supernaturals that were inherently evil. There were several citations to other journals all detailing stories that ended badly – alliances betrayed, witches compromised and enslaved, covens destroyed – when witches had associated with vampires.The tome itself contained detailed information on how witches could defend themselves from, attack and kill vampires. Studies were done on a lot of vampire phenomena – who’d have guessed that the sire bond was a genetically peculiar variation of vampire compulsion? – and apparently, the joke she had shared with Elena once upon a time about the many uses of the Cure to Vampirism was not a joke at all.According to this Grimoire, the Cure was an ingredient in some of the most powerful and elaborately dangerous spells that could be thought of – creating an infinite source of magic, the basis of a  _Discerno Coniugo_  – some form of dangerous separation spell, even a key ingredient in a spell that could cause a magical Armageddon, whatever that meant… But its most important use would always be to disable, and then destroy a vampire.

It was rather fascinating, Bonnie thought, focusing on that almost to distract herself from the rest. But she reasoned that most of the other uses  _had_  to be theoretical. There was only one known cure for vampirism in the entire world and it had been a myth until a few years ago. But then again, she realized almost at once, the Gemini could build Prison Worlds that duplicated the real one, right down to magical objects. Perhaps some of these spells had actually been tested?

The possibilities were mind-blowing.

Liv would probably know, Bonnie thought. Not for the first time, Bonnie imagined what it would have been like, being brought up with a proper  _Disciplina_ , studying these Grimoires leisurely, over the course of years and under the guidance of seasoned witches, not self-tutoring like she had been forced to do, looking for quick fixes to some immediate emergency.

Of course, if she had been given a proper Gemini  _Disciplina_ , Bonnie might never have thought twice about leaving Stefan Salvatore locked up in a tomb.

And Grandma Sheila would still be alive today.

The nebulous voices that started haunting her in 1994 used to fill her head with thoughts like that.

 _And thoughts like that_ , Bonnie told herself firmly,  _will buy me a one-way, all-expenses-paid ticket on the Cuckoo Express Train to Insanity City._

A witch could do a lot of things. But even she couldn’t change the past.

She swallowed hard, then took a deep shuddering breath, and forced herself to think of something else. The first thing that came to mind was Liv Parker.Bonnie hadn’t got any messages from the witch yet, but it was only a matter of time before Liv noticed that Bonnie had ‘borrowed’ her grimoires for a bit longer than they had agreed upon. With a sigh, Bonnie realized she’d better do some pre-emptive damage control and call the other witch. Make sure she wasn’t freaking out too much over the missing spell-books.

She got up from her chair and went to sit on her bed. Her phone was under her pillow. 

She had turned off the ringer last night and now she gaped at the list of missed calls and messages from Caroline, Matt and Damon. Bonnie groaned as she realized that she had forgotten all about the morning pow-wow. Damon was going to kill her.

She was in the middle of a quick text in apology to them when a cold aura suddenly filled her room.

“Good morning, Miss Bennett.”

Bonnie jumped to her feet.

Tall, ginger-haired, cherub-faced, dressed in denim from top to toe but still standing with the posture of someone who had lived in an era of charm schools.

Their small gang of misfits had had two skirmishes with the heretics and both times, Bonnie had only caught glimpses of the vamp-faced duo, sensing their empty lightning-fast essences better through magic than with her own eyes. It had been enough to place the man from the wedding – it was hard to forget a face that was attached to a head you had literally cut off. But Bonnie was certain that until now, she had never had a good look at the woman.

Yet there was something oddly, strikingly familiar about the face that now regarded her with clear malice.

“We’ve never been properly introduced. My name is Georgiana Parker and you are in possession of something that I am in desperate want of.”

Instinctively, stupidly, Bonnie threw a  _motus_  which the heretic just absorbed with a gleeful laugh and then in blur of red she was on Bonnie, hands clamped around Bonnie’s wrists, and fangs buried in Bonnie’s neck.

* * *

[1]Abominable creatures


	10. can we go now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the present, Bonnie fends off a home invasion. in the past, she stages a prison break.

# 

* * *

**April 2013**

The heretics, the witch-vampire creatures that Jo described so graphically, were awake. 

Bonnie knew this the moment she stumbled over the thin, pale creature huddled in a heap on the snow, a threadbare blanket thrown over his body. He was so still, so silent, his aura so dimmed. The tracking spell she had conjured with his twin’s blood had led her to him. Otherwise Bonnie would have been sure he was dead. 

“Kai… Kai…  _Kai_!” 

She struggled to turn him around to work the reviving spell. She barely recognised him. Under crudely hewn scruff, his face was worn and tired and the bulk he had picked up after the 1994 prison world had whittled away. 

Then there were the bites. On his neck. His wrists between sleeves and gloves. Even his  _temple_ … Who knew where else?  

So many bites. 

She had found Kai Parker exactly as she had expected, exactly as she had hoped. 

Bonnie had wanted to kill this man, to feel the satisfaction of twisting that knife through his chest and watching the life drain out of his eyes. Only then did she believe that she would ever know peace. The peace she had lost trapped in his prison, slowly losing her mind, as she succumbed to the ghosts and the voices that plagued her.

When he had escaped, she felt cheated.  

But later when she had been chanting under the Northern Lights, with the other three beside her, she had looked up at the sound of his cry, seen the devastation in his face, and she had been glad that he didn’t die. 

It had been  _so much_  sweeter to abandon Kai Parker to suffer the same isolation he had condemned her to. To trap him in an empty world, with nothing but his own guilt and demons for company. 

Before she vanished from 1903, Bonnie had watched Kai’s face break with utter desolation and she had felt happier than she had ever felt in … many, many years.

It hadn’t lasted.  

That same night, Bonnie was told about Lily Salvatore’s travelling companions, and she once again felt that her revenge had been thwarted. All she could think of was that a sociopathic witch and a band of evil vampires would go together like butter and jam. Fear creeped into Bonnie’s heart at the thought of Kai escaping. Because he would come after her, she had no doubt about that. And he would be ruthless.  

So she had to figure out how to keep him there forever. Already, Lily Salvatore was breathing down Bonnie’s neck, demanding for the release of her family. Bonnie stalled as much as possible but she knew it was only a matter of time before the woman’s polite insistence turned violent.

It was tempting to assume that all she needed to do was to destroy the Ascendant, and the passageway to the Prison World would be sealed away forever. But she had also assumed that the key ingredient to powering the Ascendant was Bennett  _magic_ , not Bennett  _blood_. That hadn’t turned out too well for her. For all Bonnie knew, the  _Ascendant_  was the seal to the Prison World and destroying it was the equivalent of detonating its door, letting the inmates free. To do this properly, she would need to consult with the architects of the Prison. She would need to talk to a Gemini witch.

Liv Parker and the rest of her coven had gone into hiding when Luke died, which left Josette Laughlin, formerly Parker, as Bonnie’s only option. Bonnie paid a visit to Dr. Laughlin, informed her that her estranged brother had changed address, and asked her how to make that permanent.

That was how Bonnie learnt four things: first, that Josette had no idea that had brother had been trapped in a Prison World all this while; second, that the life of the leader of the Gemini Coven was tied to the lives of all the witches and wizards of the coven, from the oldest member to the youngest – even the unborn baby in Jo’s womb; third, a new word -  _heretics_.

Lastly, that she, Bonnie, rather than finding a way to lock Kai in the 1903 Prison World, would have to find a way to bring him back.

Bonnie hadn’t wanted to believe it, had refused to take the word of her nemesis’s twin sister at face value. She had done her own homework, digging into Sheila’s old grimoires. Had even ended up sharing her plans with Damon, against her own judgment, if only to get access to the spell-books in the Salvatore library. After hours of research, she had finally found the obscure reference in one of Jonas Martin’s grimoires that confirmed the truth of Jo’s words.

Bonnie’s revenge versus the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

It wasn’t a choice.

He had barely been gone long enough for her to revel in her victory over him. The ghosts had not stopped plaguing her. The voices in her head had not stopped talking.  

But just like that, she was robbed of any chance of peace. 

At least, she took comfort from the thought of Kai suffering under the hands of merciless heretics. If Jo’s story was true, then vampires with their own magic would not be so easy for the sociopath to make friends or bargain with. Bonnie hoped that he had somehow woken them up. A troop of hungry, desiccated vampires. And Kai the only living thing in sight.

She hoped that they had drained him to within an inch of his life.

Barely five minutes after she landed in that cold world, she found Kai Parker:  a crumpled figure on the snow, suffering from acute anemia, exposure and multiple bite wounds. His magical essence was so depleted that it barely registered when she prodded it.

Drained within an inch of life.

Bonnie had found Kai exactly as she imagined. Exactly as she had hoped. This was supposed to make her happy. This was supposed to help her find peace. 

The reality made her sick.

* * *

**June 2014**

Everything about the attack was brutal. The teeth tearing through her neck, the growling as her blood gushed into the heretic’s mouth, the pull on her magic that drew it to her skin, pulsing hard in her veins…

… and staying there.

She could feel her heart slowing, her vision fading from blood loss but her magic still stayed within her.

With one fading gasp of energy, Bonnie drew on everything she had and threw a  _motus_.

This time it hit. Too engrossed in her feeding, the heretic was caught off-guard and she went flying across the room. Bonnie held her neck with one hand, gasping and fighting against the coming blackness, and stretched out another hand to throw  _incendia_  after  _incendia_  at the creature.

She was already on her feet and flying towards Bonnie and each time it hit her, she paused, reeling as if to absorb the spell. It slowed her down, but it didn’t hurt her, and it was probably already making her stronger.

In seconds, she had reached Bonnie and grabbed her by the shoulders, lifting her up and pinning her high on the wall. She had stopped siphoning and this close, Bonnie could see that her eyes were deep blue, there were jewellery shaped like little green birds in her ears, and her face was taut with utter bewilderment.

“By what means is your magic restrained?” she rasped.

Bonnie stared down at her, her head hurting, so weak that she couldn’t even feel the pain from the heretic’s grip. Could barely muster up a watery smile. “Won’t you like to know?” she whispered.

With a snarl, the heretic pulled her forward and smashed her back into the wall. Bonnie’s vision exploded with red stars. 

“I demand your Expression. Yield it to me or face your demise.”

Bonnie’s head was almost lolling on her neck now, and the heretic’s face was dimming into a pale blur surrounded by a red cloud.

“Y- you won’t find it if I’m d-dead,” she managed.

“You have no leverage to make demands of me.”

“Not a demand. F-fact.”

Its grip on her tightened so hard that Bonnie was certain that it really was going to make good on its threat and tear her apart.

Instead, it flung her to the bed, and the next thing Bonnie felt was magic being forced into her body.

A healing spell. Done by someone with obviously little experience performing one. Without the finesse of a practiced caster, it burnt through her body, hurting even worse than the biting had done. Bonnie moaned as her neck knitted closed and blood was forced out of her bones, leaving her weak and shaky.

“Enough.” Bonnie gasped.

It was nothing like being healed by vampire blood. Her body ached all over, her heart racing, her lungs working overtime to compensate for the rapid healing that had taken as much a toll on her as the attack.

The heretic loomed over her, her oddly familiar face dark with determination. “You are sufficiently revived. Yield the Expression at once.”

“So that you can kill me when I’m done?” Bonnie muttered. “I think I’ll pass.”

Fingers curled into her hair, yanking her head forward and making her yelp. “If it is required, I  _will_ dismember you and burrow through your remains until I possess it. I have knowledge of the means to prolong your life until you are begging for the mercy of its end.”

“If you torture me, you’ll just piss me off and I  _definitely_ won’t help you,” Bonnie gasped.

The heretic’s grip in her hair loosened a bit. “You are the insolent witch that gypped the one dearest to me. It will immensely gratify me to destroy  _you_.”

Bonnie smiled slowly, her eyes catching the tiny blur of movement in the far corner of the room. “The feeling is mutual.”

Then her fist smashed into the heretic’s face.Or tried to. The woman let go off her hair to catch her hand, and that split-second of distraction was enough for the heretic to be caught off-guard when a stream of wooden bullets went pumping through her body.

She screamed, the force of the shots flinging her into the wall. Bonnie yanked her hand away, and rolled off the bed, landing painfully on the floor. She tried to crawl out of the way, but before she could shift further than an inch, a blur of blonde hair and flowers was at her side, swooping her up into strong arms.

Caroline.

“I am not done with you!” Georgiana’s voice roared, shooting out a de-mobilizing spell on both of them.But Bonnie had anticipated it, and threw it right back at her. It wasn’t enough to stop her but it sent her reeling.

And made her infuriated. She snarled, fangs cutting through her lips. “I care nothing for what was promised,  _you will suffer for that._ ” Her hands rose up and pain exploded in Bonnie’s head. She felt Caroline stagger, as well. Both girls fell to the floor.

Then Tyler came flying across the room with a stake in his grip and halted in the middle of it – his hands on his head, shouting in pain as Bonnie felt her own pain leave her, the heretic switching her focus away from them.

Two shots were fired and now, Matt was stepping forward, the gun in a two-handed grip as he shouted Bonnie’s name. Georgiana merely rose a lazy hand, sent them flying back – he dodged the first, and the second one hit his stomach, the impact throwing him against the wall.

“You missed, young man.”

“No, he didn’t,” Damon quipped from behind her.

She turned in time to receive the full blast of the blowtorch in his hands. She lit up like a firecracker, flaming from her shoes to the top of her fiery head. Then Stefan and Tyler were running forward, batons swinging, Bonnie was stretching out her hands and with magic and brute force, they shoved her at the window. It shattered under her weight, and she flew through, screaming all the way down until her voice went abruptly silent.

* * *

**April 2013**

About fifteen minutes after she found Kai Parker’s body in the snow, Bonnie finally felt she had moved them to a place safe enough to stop. Even with magic, dragging along the dead weight of a six feet plus man through the snow was no joke. Keeping them camouflaged had also taken its toll. But she didn’t know what to expect when she revived him and if he was going to attack her on instinct, she needed them to be in a place where they were less likely to both get caught; and she could, hopefully, talk him down from his rage.

She stretched out her senses now, enveloping everywhere within a mile. If anything stepped into that radius, she would know.

She stared down at the unconscious man in the snow, scowling. It would be so much easier if she could do this without having to wake him up. Heaving a huge sigh, she knelt down beside him, and placed her hands over his back.

He was still wearing the same clothes he had arrived in. She made out the rips in his jeans and coat where her knife had gone through.

Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes and chanted softly. The revival spell she used was the strongest one she knew, and she augmented it with Expression to be sure. It should send Kai to his feet with enough energy to burn through for hours. Enough for both of them to get to the designated spot, do the Ascension spell and kiss this prison world goodbye. 

She felt the magic working, and stopped, taking her hands back. She placed her left hand flat on the snow, but kept a hex hovering at the tips of her gloved fingers; her right hand brushed against the hilt of the knife under her jacket. Any moment now, Kai was going to jump up like a jack in the box, take one look at her, and attack. She’d have to immobilise him, then explain her presence and give him the choice to either come along without violence or …

Well, she would think of something. 

She heard him stir, and grew even tenser. But he just slowly rolled to his back, his breathing changing as he shivered. His lids finally opened, and a pair of grey eyes stared at her.

For a few moments, they just looked at each other. Kai’s face remained blank, and his shattered aura barely stirred.

“Kai…” Bonnie asked finally, tentatively, half-worried, half-wary as she touched his chest gently. Worried because she feared he had been so badly sapped of blood and magic that even her spell, which was the magical equivalent of an adrenaline shot, hadn’t been enough.

Wary because every single time that Bonnie Bennett and Kai Parker got physically close to each other, it always ended with one of them getting stabbed.

It was like a demented game of tag. And – what were the odds? – Bonnie was It.

After a few more moments of staring blankly at her, his face – thin, under weeks of unkempt facial hair – stretched into a smile she could only describe as idiotic.

“You’re wearing far too many clothes, Bon.”

Her jaw dropped.

But Kai helpfully elaborated, his voice hoarse but still managing to retain its annoyingly familiar singsong lilt. “I didn’t just hit rock bottom. I kept going. I’m at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. No, further than that. I am practically in the Earth’s core. I’m swimming in prehistoric magma right now. If magma was ice-cold, instead of hot.”

“Kai…”

“The least the universe can do is deliver fantasies to my exact specifications, don’t you think? Now the Bonnie I asked for was wearing a red bik-.”

“I’m not some wet dream, you jerk,” she shouted, horrified, yanking her hand back. He had been pushing ever so slightly against it. “Get up!” And for emphasis, she struck him with her open palm and a bolt of magic.

“Ow! Can everybody stop assuming I’m into kinky stuff? What the hell kind of fantasy is this?”

“Will you stop calling me that?”

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes with one hand, and glared at her. Then suddenly, he sat up with a yelp, his eyes bugging. “Bonnie?” he yelled. “Are you really here?”

“Yes, you prick. I’m here to rescue you,” she snapped.

He blinked. Looked behind her. Looked over his shoulder. Looked up. Looked everywhere but at her. “No, you’re not.You can’t be,” he said slowly. “They’re playing with my head. They’ve done that before.” He kept  _not_  looking at her, and she suddenly realized that he was talking – or trying to talk – to someone close by. “Whose idea was this? Iceman? Cherokee? Ginger-dee or Ginger-dum?”

“Kai…”

“Can’t a man get a little privacy here? I’m not going to last long if you can’t even let me escape into my own head…”

Bonnie slapped him, her gloved palm leaving a red print across his face.

He looked at her then, shock washing over his face. He raised his hand to touch his cheek. “That didn’t feel like a vamp-dream,” he said stupidly. “Why would they put a dream in my head of Bonnie Bennett slapping me? On second thoughts, don’t answer that...”

“Get up, Kai!” she yelled. “We don’t have all day. The Northern Lights are about to start and unless you want your new besties to tag along…”

He was breathing hard now and still staring hard at her, as if he dared not look away or she would disappear. She could see disbelief warring with hope on his face.

The hope was desperate, and painful to look at and she hated herself for feeling even one iota of pity for him. So she forced it down as she got to her feet. “Come on, Kai. Unless you’re enjoying yourself here…?”

Kai swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I swear if this is another twisted mind game, I don’t care what it takes, but I will find out who came up with this fucked up idea and I will rip out their heart.” And his voice was cold and cruel – and she was grateful to hear it because that was the voice of the man she hated beyond measure.

“Good to know.” She leaned over and stretched out her hand. He hesitated for a fraction, then he took it. A frisson of something – magic, probably – passed from his hand to hers, even through the gloves and his eyes locked into her own, making her breath stutter. It took everything in her not to yank away. Instead, she broke that locked gaze and held on firmly. His weight almost dragged her down, and since she wasn’t moving her hand from her knife, she had to work one-handed. But somehow she got them both upright. She let go off his hand the moment he was standing, shaking out the tingles that were climbing from her palm to her elbow.

They stood, staring at each other. Bonnie felt apprehension rising in her gut as she saw the light of realisation, then acceptance dawning in his eyes.

She took a deep breath, and spoke with as much venom as she could muster. “This is only going to work if we work together. My friends are waiting on the other side and if you dare try to kill me or trap me here, I promise you Gemini coven or no coven…”

“Now I know this isn’t a dream,” he said, his equally cold voice cutting through her speech as he stepped towards her. “Forgive me,  _Bonster_. I know you have this big threatening speech all rehearsed for me but I’m going to take a rain-check because we need to start running now.”

She glared up at him. “We need to find the Ascendant first,  _Kai_.”

His eyes glinted. “I already have it,  _Bonnie_.”

That gave her pause, then her suspicions came back. “Let me see it.”

He laughed, tut-tutted. “So you can stab me with a pick-axe and take off?” He was near enough to glare down menacingly at her.

Her hand tightened on her knife. “I came back for you, you jerk.”

His glanced at her hand, and scoffed. “OK, this probably sounds ridiculous, but where you’re concerned, Bonnie, I have trust issues. Crazy, right?”

“Damn it, K-”

“Can we at least move this discussion to somewhere a bit safer?”

“I can sense anything from a mile away. Nothing’s going to surprise me. Show me the Ascendant or I swear, Kai…”

“Fine. Let’s do a locator spell.” He was tugging at his glove. “Since you’re so eager to feel up my chest a-”

And then she felt it step through her perimeter – it was cold and empty and made her think of black holes and vacuums. Made her think of Kai in his prison world every-time he unleashed his power at her. Only this was ten times worse.

And it was moving fast.

Bonnie’s eyes locked with Kai’s, and she saw the stark panic – fear even – in his face.

“Bonnie!”

She felt the air shift as the creature flew toward them – felt its breath almost on her neck. 

And she went flying into the cold ground and only barely registered Kai’s hands shoving her out of the way. She landed with an  _oomph,_ face down and eating snow. She turned quickly to see the two figures struggling in front of her. The heretic had landed on Kai instead; she could barely make out the creature’s face or if it was even male or female, just silver-blond hair flying as it clung to Kai who was desperately trying to shake it off. Kai’s magic set its coat aflame and it still clung, its teeth digging into his neck.

It yanked itself back with a scream as Bonnie’s aneurysm struck it. It staggered away from Kai, and turned silver eyes to her where she stood with both hands outstretched.

Gold lights were swirling in them.

“Bonnie…! Stop…!” Kai was shouting.

She sent another aneurysm at it and now it laughed, the gold in its eyes glowing brighter. It was a man, tall and large, with sharp high cheekbones. He was beautiful, the way a black hole was beautiful. And he was coming towards her, glee stark on his face.

His hands clamped on her cheeks, rings burning on her cold face, and she felt the rush of magic violently pulled out of her body like a hook in her stomach violently tugging out her guts. Either she had forgotten how it felt when Kai siphoned her. Or this was a hundred times worse.Pain exploded in her head and she fell to her knees, screaming; the creature was falling with her, his hands tight on her face, gold swirling so rapidly in its eyes that it made her dizzy to look. His face was ecstatic.

“Bonnie!”

Her fear reached a crescendo and Expression exploded out of her like a supernova, the volatile power rising with her fear to protect her. The heretic’s face was no longer joyful but suffused with something like fear; its eyes now glowing so brightly that she couldn’t stare at them anymore. She felt his hands tugging  _from_  her – like if he was trying to let go but couldn’t. His mouth opened wide in a silent shout.

Her head was still pounding, tears streaming down her face as magic gushed out of her body like her life’s blood. Only infinitely worse.

Then the contact was broken. And she staggered, gasping, to see Kai behind the creature, throwing it into the snow.

It rolled and stopped, in a sitting position. Its mouth was still open, and the horror on its face had only increased with the horror that was now  _its_  face. The bright streaks of gold had ripped through eyeballs, and skin. Its veins were lit with gold, and they were bursting in front of Bonnie’s eyes, leaking out magic like water from a puncture skein.

It finally screamed, but it wasn’t words but magic that poured out of its mouth, almost blinding her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Absentmindedly, she felt Kai near her, and she turned instinctively to hold on to him.

Finally, it imploded, its body collapsing into itself, leaving only a bright mushroom, golden and black, that hovered over it for a moment, then zoomed upwards into the atmosphere.

Bonnie watched it go, heart pounding. Then she turned to look at Kai Parker’s shocked face.

He was so close, that she could see her breath mist over his skin, feel the warmth of his on her face. Both of them were gasping, from cold and shock. He was staring at her with wonder in his grey eyes.

“How did you…” He started, then laughed, looked away, stared back at her. Laughed again. Stared harder.“Bon…”

She could barely make out the words. “Can we go now, Kai?”

He laughed again. She wondered if he was losing it. She felt like if she was. “Thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

**June 2014**

“Bonnie,” Matt was groaning from where he laid shivering and bleeding on the ground. “Are you OK?”

Caroline put Bonnie down on the floor, placed one hand on her cheek and put the bleeding wrist of the other hand to Bonnie’s lips.

Bonnie moaned gratefully as she gulped down the vampire blood, then she pushed her friend’s hand away. “I’m fine… Matt… He got shot…”

Faster than Bonnie could blink, Caroline was by his side. When she held her wrist against his mouth, he grimaced – Bonnie knew Matt’s reservations about vampire healing – but he was sensible this time, and swallowed.

Both humans healed, Care rested on her haunches and stared at them worriedly. “Will you guys be OK? I should go after Stefan and the others.”

The vampire brothers and Tyler had rushed out of the room, ignoring the calls to come back.

“Stupid. That’s how we lost Enzo,” Matt mumbled as he pulled himself into a seating position.

“Go, Care,” Bonnie said. “Those idiots will only-”

“Save your life with minimal damage to your cute little place and this is how you thank us?” Damon drawled, swinging the door open almost into Caroline’s face if she hadn’t edged away in the nick of time. He sauntered into the house, ahead of Tyler and Stefan, who Caroline rushed to in concern.

In response to Damon’s remark, Bonnie stared pointedly at the blood-stains on the carpet, then in the direction of her room where there were scorch marks and a broken window. At least.

He shrugged. “Told you not to skimp on insurance.”

* * *

**April 2013**

“Come on.”

Bonnie was running as fast as she could through a snowy forest in 1903 Mystic Falls, feeling Expression running through her, lighting her bones like fire. The snow was falling fast now and she could barely make Kai out ahead of her, but she could feel his essence, pulsing brightly and streaked with hers – residue of the healing spell she had used to revive him what now felt like a lifetime ago.

Behind them, she could feel the aura of the heretic ebb as it stirred. She had sensed it a few minutes ago from the distance. But now it was gaining ground on them.

She could have used magic to give herself a boost of speed but that demonstration from that…  _creature_ …had made her wary, paranoid almost. She dared not release even a single spike of power that could be used against her. She glared balefully at Kai’s back in front of her.

God, how she hated these syphons. Witches, vampires, the lot of them.

Perhaps it was the sheer fury of her thoughts that made her miss the raised root, and go sprawling into the snow.

_“Bonnie!”_

Pushing past her disorientation, she scrambled to her hands and feet, and tried to stand up. Then she felt a bolt of power and something large and fiery grabbed her, and shoved her back into the snow.

Hair and skin almost the color of ice and teeth that were just as sharp.

_It was the same one._

And with a nauseating jolt, Bonnie remembered that death to a Prisoner of this World was meaningless.

“ _Pretty little witch_ ,” and now  _its_  voice was in her head, whispering like a snake’s forked tongue, “ _You caught me unawares. My apologies. Now I am primed to indulge in that intoxicating magic you possess so abundantly_.”

She shoved with her hands and a  _Motus_ that ripped out of her instinctively but it only slid back a few feet, its ice eyes swirling with gold strands of her own power, a macabre smile on its face, then it bent its head and tore through her side.

Bonnie screamed. Her head slammed into the snow and she saw the stars blinking over her, her body on fire as her blood and her magic – brutal, merciless Expression – were sucked out of her wound.

Once again, she felt that wicked tug of power from her body. But this time with the blood, it was worse. How was that even possible?

Then the stars were blocked with something large and black and she felt the teeth ripping out of her flesh. Which made her scream some more.

She scrambled away, her hand already on her side as she chanted something to douse the throbbing. It was barely enough. Beside her, there were sounds of a scuffle, but she was disoriented from the pain and shock of losing both her blood and her magic.

Still, she forced herself to focus, to make out the two figures grappling in the stone. Kai was astride the heretic, his arm swinging repeatedly as he jabbed into the creature with a familiar, wicked-looking blade. But even as she watched, the heretic’s hand shot up, grabbing him by the throat, and the flesh turned red where they touched.

“Ossux!” Bonnie screamed in her head, stretching out her hand and the wrist choking Kai snapped. The heretic hissed as Kai scrambled away.

Her second Ossux flew – right into the heretic’s outstretched hand.

It grinned at her, eyes swirling. “You’ll have my attention in a moment,” it snarled as it splayed its fingers. Bonnie felt the Motus pull her off the ground like a noose around her neck. A tightening noose… The white world turned grey…

Then she was free, falling in a rough, but gentle heap to her feet. She stumbled, but refused to fall, blinking away the dark edges of her vision until she had found Kai’s dark hair and his thin strong hands, burning red where they gripped the other’s face, his thumbs hooked through the sockets, tugging at them. She scooped up a fist of snow in the ground, packed it into a ball, whispered under her breath then lobbed it at the fighting men.

She barely had the strength for a good throw but magic did the rest, sending the ball flying, then flaming and striking the heretic directly at its ear and through. For a moment, the creature was frozen, its hands locked on Kai’s neck, choking him. Then Kai stepped back, pushing him away and the man fell sideways.

There was emptiness in the spaces where his eyes belonged. A few feet away, the ball of scorched blackness rolled to a stop, next to a mess of goo and eyes.

Kai limped to stand in front of her, bending over with his hands on his knees. “Good throw,” he said hoarsely, then broke into a bout of coughing. “An inch off-aim and I’d be the one with snowballs. Get it?” His thin, unshaven face was streaked with mirth. He actually looked like if he was enjoying himself.

Of course, anything was an improvement from being eaten by a bunch of witch-vampires.

“That was the same one that attacked us before, wasn’t it?” she asked him.

His cough sounded like a laugh. “PWR’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

“PWR?”

“Prison World Resuscitation. To make it worse, these suckers don’t die easy.” That was definitely a chuckle. “Suckers? Get it?”

She clenched her fists, felt Expression tingle against her knuckles. “I killed him the first time.”

He scoffed. “You got lucky, caught him off-guard. You saw what happened now. He’ll suck you up like a Slurpee. Better save those Bennett batteries to get us out of here.”

Bonnie thought for a moment. “In 1994, the times you died-”

“-the times you murdered me-”

“It took you at least half a day to wake up. This guy was up and running in …what? A few minutes? Half an hour? How is that possible?”

“I’ve been a bit busy staying alive to make notes on ‘heretics in their unnatural habitat’ but if you want to stick around and observe” - he waved his hand expansively at the winter landscape - “by all means, be my guest.” 

She glared at him, furious that she couldn’t argue the point. “Whatever. Let’s just go.” She got to her feet wearily.

“Gimme a moment. Took a little magic to fight that bastard. And I think your spell is wearing off.”

That was inevitable. She had lost more magic in two short moments than she ever had before.

But they couldn’t wait. Not for one moment. “We have to keep going. The others…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. No worries. You’ll keep me safe.” He winked at her.

Anger and hate rushed through her. He was enjoying this. Her rescuing him. Her saving him. Her risking her life for  _his_ sake.

She walked up to him, right into his space and saw with satisfaction the way the mirth slid from his eyes, wariness filling its place. “We’ve put one down but the others will soon be at our heels.” Her voice thickened with spite. “I think it’s getting close to their meal-time. Wanna stick around when they get hungry and start looking for their snack?”

His face twisted with anger – his mood change as abrupt as it was familiar and she braced herself for it – the attack that she’d been expecting from the moment he opened his eyes after her spell had revived him.

Perhaps he had been too grateful at being rescued to care that it was Bonnie doing it. Or perhaps he was waiting until the rescue was over to turn on her.

But now looking up at his furious face, she knew he wasn’t waiting any longer.

She actually felt relieved.  _Let’s get this over with_. 

Her hand rushed to her belt where her knife…

Her knife was gone.

Immediately, her eyes flew to the spot in the snow where she had seen him stab the heretic –

–  _when did he take it? The first attack? The chase? How did I miss it?_ –

– She called it to her hand – but a shade too late. She watched in dismay as it landed in Kai’s own magical grip.

He waved it nonchalantly in front of his face, his eyes glinting the same steel-blue as the blade. “Well, isn’t this familiar?”

_‘All I need is Bennett blood…’_

_Standing by that tree stump, watching the light catch his sister’s knife – this same knife – as he tossed it and smiled craftily._

Fear splintered through Bonnie and she shot to her feet, pushing out a  _motus_ strong enough to send him crashing into a tree.

Or meant to. His free hand caught both hers, and she felt the spell fizzle out. He was yelling something but she was still on attack, readying to push out an aneurysm with her mind… sensing his own magic rise defensively…

When she saw he was holding the knife at her, hilt-first.

She paused, halted magic cackling in the air between them, as she stared from the knife to the man who was all but cursing her with his eyes.

“Take the stupid knife, Bonnie!” He shoved it at her, and it poked her jacket.

She hesitated – what’s the catch? – and he cocked his head, his mouth curling mockingly. “Unless you still want to play tag…”

The echo of her own thoughts not long ago rattled her; and Bonnie snatched her hands free, grabbed the knife, pushed it into its sheath in her belt. Trap or not, she’ll figure it out while she had the advantage.

“I swear Kai, if you try anything, anything at all…”

“You’ll… what? Stab me in the back? Serve me up to heretics?”

Her hands curled into fists. For a moment, she and Kai just glared at each other, breathing so hard and angrily that steam clouded between their faces.

He was the one that broke the  _impasse_. “We don’t have time for this,” he snarled. Without another word, he picked her up, hissing as her hexed hands burned his coat, and flung her over his shoulder and started running. “You’re slowing us down!”

Part of Bonnie’s brain told her that this actually made sense – with her shorter legs, she was slowing him down and revived as he was, he had a boost of energy that they should put to good use. The other part of her, felt sick from hanging upside down, staring down at endless white, and being in close physical contact with Kai Parker – and that part kept screaming at him to put her down that instant.

He didn’t though and in a few minutes, she stopped screaming for him to drop her and started screaming that he run faster. Because she felt them coming nearer.

They were more. And, curse her ill-timed joke, she was right.

They were hungry.

* * *

**June 2014**

“I said it,” Damon was telling Stefan. “I knew Little Miss Organized here wouldn’t have skipped on the pow-wow unless she was in mortal danger. And there you all were thinking she had overslept.”

Bonnie nodded eagerly. This was not the time to tell them that actually, she  _had_  overslept. The heretic attack had come later.

“Did you find her?” Caroline asked. Although since the three men had returned without the crisped body of a red-headed heretic, Bonnie guessed the answer was no. 

Tyler said, “She was gone by the time we got there. Must have regenerated and zapped off.”

Matt shook his head. “Or just cloaked herself and lurked nearby, waiting for some sucker to walk into her trap and get eaten. It was stupid of you to chase after her. We stick together against these things.”

“Save the lecture, Boy Scout,” Damon snapped. “She attacked Bonnie. I wanted her blood.”

Bonnie felt warmth suffuse through her.

“More like she’d have got some of ours. Matt’s right,” Stefan murmured.

“I care about Bonnie, too,” Matt said quickly. “But we have to be practical.”

Caroline’s blood had kicked in and Bonnie felt stronger, recovered from both the heretic’s violent attack and her equally violent healing. She started pulling herself from the floor to sit down on the lone armchair, and Matt rushed to help her. He had changed into a shirt that Caroline found – a shirt that looked suspiciously like Stefan’s – an observation that Damon had made loudly and to everyone’s amusement. Everyone, that is, except Stefan and Caroline.

“You know I’d have gone after that heretic if it had been the right call,” Matt told Bonnie now, staring at her earnestly, as he perched on the armchair after settling her in. His arm was warm and comforting over the back of the chair.

She shoved him lightly. “Of course, I do, Matt.” She peered at him in concern, and murmured, “You OK?”

“Good as new,” he said wryly. “You?”

Out of habit, she checked her neck and felt the skin whole under the blood. Spotting that, Caroline passed her a wipe for her fingers and started dabbing at her neck with another one.

“What did she want, Bonnie?” she asked now.

Bonnie quickly narrated the conversation with the heretic.

Tyler whistled. “What the hell does she want with Expression?”

“I have no idea,” Bonnie said.

“They’re already super-powered, un-killable killing machines. What harm could they come up with a little more super-magic?” Damon drawled.

“We have to keep you safe, Bonnie,” Caroline said. She squeezed into the seat with Bonnie, and put her arm around her, displacing Matt who landed with a thump on the floor. Both girls ignored the glare he sent up at them – or the way Tyler snickered. “They tried this once and they’ll probably try it again.”

“Why’s that, I wonder?” Stefan asked.

Everyone turned to him.

“Why couldn’t she drain out your magic? They’ve managed to do that for every other witch, vampire or supernatural so far. What’s the difference with you, Bonnie?”

Tyler’s smile turned to a scowl. Caroline inhaled sharply and glared at Stefan. Damon looked like if he was going to beat his brother up right there and then.

Matt’s eyes on Stefan were hard and his voice was icy. “If I didn’t know better, Stefan, I’d swear you’re disappointed the heretic didn’t kill Bonnie.”

Stefan shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

“What’s going on here is that Bonnie is lucky to be alive,” Caroline snapped. “And you need to shut up if you can’t say anything helpful.”

Everyone started talking at once. Stefan was defending himself in calm, measured tones that were only making Damon, Caroline and Matt increasingly louder and angrier. Tyler started by playing peacemaker, and trying to get them back to neutral ground and talk strategy. Then after a while, he gave up and went to fetch a beer from the fridge.

That seemed to do the trick because the next moment, Matt, Damon and Stefan had helped themselves to cans too – which made Damon bitch about the girls not stocking up on bourbon – which set Caroline off on him as well. 

Bonnie registered all this with half her attention. The other half was replaying Georgiana Parker’s teeth tearing through her neck and her magic rushing to her skin and staying there.

Stefan’s question, hurtful as it was poised, was a valid one.

Furtively, Bonnie stared at the black mark on her wrist.

* * *

_Portland, Oregon_

“Does the name Stewart ring a bell?”

It was mid-day. Alaric was at school, calling as he usually did to ask how all his girls were doing. 

Jo assured him that they were all doing great. It was a full house that day with Gab and Liv both in. The conversation was drawing to a close, and Jo was in the middle of deciding how much was not too much ice cream to scoop into her bowl, when the unexpected question popped up, making her freeze mid-scoop. “Nope. Should it?”

“I don’t know. It’s the name of the woman that died in this Mystic Falls/ Heretics business. When Bonnie mentioned it, it rang a bell.”

Jo shifted the phone on her shoulder and thought of a good reply. “Mmm… Now that I think of it, it does sound a little familiar. Want me to take a look into it?”

“You don’t mind?”

“I’m a desperate housewife. It’s in the job description to be nosy.”

“You’re not a desperate housewife. You’re a wonderful mother who spends an incredible number of hours taking care of our children. And before that, you were an amazing doctor who spent an incredible number of decades taking care of lots of other people’s children. There’s nothing desperate about you, Jo Saltzman.”

Before she had met Alaric Saltzman, Jo had thought of herself as quite an unsentimental woman. But now? “Someone is going to get lucky tonight,” she promised.

He was still whooping when she ended the call.

She grinned as, finally deciding, she ditched the bowl and grabbed the entire tub. She passed the nursery where Gab was carrying one of the twins over her shoulder. Gab caught her eye and pressed a finger to her mouth and Jo nodded, moving on. She had persuaded the nanny to spend the night so she really was going to deliver on her promise to Alaric.

Her mind went back to her husband's question and her grin faded.

She moved along the corridor, almost walking by Liv’s open door, but then she caught the tail end of a harsh whisper.

“Stop trying to screw me over!”

Jo hesitated, worried.

Liv was pacing the room in angry strides, her curly hair all but sparking with temper. She turned, starting a little when she saw Jo, then beckoned her sister over.

Jo stepped in, hesitantly.

_Work._  Liv whispered around the phone.  _Just hold a sec._  Then she turned back to her call. “We had a contract. Clear terms and conditions. If you don’t live up to your part of the bargain, I’m going to walk and you’ll find out just how easy it is to get someone of my skillset.”

She switched off her phone and let out a strangled scream.

Jo gaped. “Woah, what’s that all about?”

Liv looked angry enough to explode. “Office bullshit.” She ran her fingers through her curls, making them even wilder and messier than they already were. “My idiot co-workers think they can pull a fast one on me.” She breathed hard, her eyes flashing.

Jo tut-tutted. She knew all too well from her own professional career how often freelance workers, like Liv, drew the short straw when it came to office politics. Your more ruthless colleagues saw you as an easy mark. Her stoic younger sister was not one to bring work drama home so for her to be so upset now, she was clearly having a hard time.

Jo may have missed out almost two decades of Liv’s life, and a few months of cohabiting wasn’t going to undo that. But there were certain things that hadn’t changed.

For example, whenever Livvie-poo had a tantrum, there was usually one quick fix.

She held out the bowl.

“Ice cream?” Jo offered.

Moments later, and the Parker women were sitting on the floor of Liv’s bedroom, tucking into the whole bowl. Liv was a bit hesitant at first – something about calories – until Jo promised to teach her a spell for that. “Not exactly orthodox,” she warned. “And it helped that I had a Bennett BFF to spell it with. But maybe if you asked Bonnie, she could help you with that, too.”

So Liv tucked in, and two spoons later, she was visibly calmer.

She looked over at Jo now, with raised eyebrows. “You knew Abby Bennett, didn’t you?”

“She lived in Portland for some time. We went to grade school together. She was half the reason why I went to Virginia. The other half was her mother.”

“Wasn’t that a bit counterintuitive? I thought the whole idea of you running away was to get away from magic?” Liv asked, her voice suddenly sharp. She stared at her spoon intently.

Jo glanced at her sister, wondering how long that question had festered inside Liv. They had talked about family a lot, over this past year. Liv mostly asked about her mother whom she barely remembered. But this was the first time she had ever brought up Jo’s decision to leave.

Jo chose her words carefully. “When I left the coven, I didn’t want to be around anything that would draw me back to magic. Not even family.” She gave her sister an intent look but Liv’s face was steadfastly blank. “But if not for the Bennetts, I wouldn’t have lasted three months in the real world before I went crawling back. I needed them.”  _I didn’t choose them over you,_  she added silently, hoping that the words she did say out loud had managed to convey that.

The silence that followed was loud with everything that went unsaid.

Liv broke it. “So did you ever meet Bonnie as a kid?” The question was asked matter-of-factly, her face relaxed. Whatever she thought of Jo’s answer, it hadn’t bothered her too much.

Jo chuckled. “I used to babysit her until she was three or so.” After that, Abby had left her family and Rudy Hopkins had closed ranks on all things witchcraft.

But magic had not been the problem with that marriage, Jo thought sadly.

She reached for the tub and caught a strange – slightly nauseated – expression on Liv’s face.

“What?” Jo asked, surprised.

“Nothing. Just… Thinking of something funny.”

“Funny ha ha or funny weird?”

“You know what? I’m not so sure.”

Jo shrugged. She wasn’t one to pry. “So what did the guys at the firm do to make you so pissed, anyway?”

Liv’s face clouded, getting mad all over again and making Jo sorry that she asked.

Liv swallowed her spoonful of cream, her jaw working furiously. When she finally answered, her voice shook slightly. “Tried to take out some of the work from my scope. After clearly telling me I was responsible for everything. Then they were going to short change me, too.”

Jo scowled. “Is that even legal?”

“Technically it is. Ethically, it stinks and they know it.” Her face darkened further. “I have half a mind to hex all of them until next Friday.” She bit her lip then, and gave Jo a guilty glance. “I’m not going to, I promise.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to snitch to Dad. Heck, if I had magic, I’d probably help you. No one screws with my little sister and gets away with it.”

That made Liv smile, some of the anger fleeing from her face. “I was more worried about the great coven leader, actually.”

“I’m not going to tell him either. Especially as I have no idea where he is.”

Liv laughed. “Yeah, right.”

Where did that come from? “Liv?”

Liv gave her a pointed look. “Dad’s been calling me too. I tried calling Kai for what it’s worth, but his phone’s been switched off all day. Why don’t you just tell Dad that Kai’s gone to Virginia?”

“Has he? Do you know that for a fact?”

“Come off it, Jo.”

“Seriously, Liv. I have no idea where Kai is. Like I told Dad, maybe he’s in Brooklyn? Or in NOLA, negotiating with the Nine Covens? Which, by the way, is kind of important. If they’re really being wooed by the Augustine Society, they’re borderline violating our treaties.”

“You know, that’s never made any sense to me. The Augustine Society died with the last Whitmore heir.”

“Rumour has it that it’s been revived.”

Liv shook her head, disbelieving. “I don’t doubt that some mundane secret society is chatting up the Nine. I just doubt that it’s Augustine.”

“Well, you should know better than me.” Jo shrugged. “If Kai’s not in NOLA for the Nine, then he might be there to consult the Southern Court about the dragon pretenders.”

Liv choked on her spoon. “Honestly, Jo? You mean, you’re going to sit here and pretend that you don’t know anything about whatever’s happening between your twin and Bonnie Bennett?”

Jo grinned. “Now, I didn’t say that.”

Liv eyed her sister. “Well,  _I_  only found out when he showed up here the day after she arrived and they nearly set the smoke detectors off just talking. And suddenly a lot of stuff started making sense. Exactly how long has this been going on?”

“We really shouldn’t be talking about the Praetor in such a disrespectful way,” Jo said primly and Liv groaned, “but we’re all family here and it’s important we share these things!”

So naturally, she spilled everything she knew. Her first inkling had been her own bachelorette party turned nightmare when Lily Salvatore had almost killed Bonnie, and Jo had witnessed first-hand her brother’s reaction to the possibility of losing Bonnie. Not pretty. After that, it was merely a matter of her having eyes and using them. Months later, when Alaric repeated what the conversation he had with her brother during Jo’s false labor, it had been a mere confirmation of her own conclusions.

“Wow,” Liv said at the end. She looked slightly dazed, her round eyes impossibly rounder. She shook her head. “You know that technically, Kai’s old enough to be Bonnie’s dad?”

Jo choked. “Oh my god, Liv!”

“But it’s true. Abby was your age.”

“Stop skeeving me out. He was in limbo for most of her life. It doesn’t count. Besides her friends are dating vampires that could be their ancestors. Kai’s practically a teen in contrast.”

Liv still looked skeptical, and slightly nauseated; and Jo realized the reason for the ‘funny’ thought that had passed through her sister’s head a while ago. But thankfully, Liv dropped that particular line of questioning and asked instead, “So I’m guessing you think they have a chance?”

“As much a chance as the rest of us. Two years ago, I thought I was going to be some old cat lady and now I’m married to a wonderful man, with two beautiful girls. Bonnie’s friends hooked up with the Salvatore vampires, so there’s a precedent there.”

“And the moment the doppelganger turned human again, she gave  _her_  old man the boot so there’s precedent there as well,” Liv snarked.

Jo rolled her eyes.

“How’s Gilbert, anyway?” Liv asked, her eyes glinting. “Are you guys still in touch?”

“She liked all the twins’ new pictures on Facebook,” Jo said with a smile. “But other than a few mails last Fall, we haven’t really  _really_ connected. She’s busy. She chose a crazy career for herself. Amazing, rewarding but demanding as hell.” Pride fluttered in Jo’s heart. She had bonded with Elena Gilbert long before she knew who the girl was, magically – and she had recognized a lot of herself in the younger woman. It gave Jo immense gratification that – also like her own self – Elena had risen above the tragedy and craziness that had plagued her early life and chosen to make a difference in the world.

She threw a guilty glance at her younger sister, suddenly sensitive to how Liv might feel about Jo’s big-sisterly affection for yet another woman close to her own age.

But Liv merely looked speculative, not at all like if she was jealous or upset or trying to pretend she wasn’t either.

“Well, Caroline is still with Stefan Salvatore,” Jo said, changing the topic back. “That precedent still stands for Bonnie and Kai.” Her thoughts became speculative. “And if our Praetor can snag a Bennett, after centuries of our coven courting them that would pretty much seal our coven  _and_ our family’s ranks in the pecking order for centuries.”

Liv’s spoon was half-way to her mouth when Jo said that; and she stopped to give her sister a look of disgust. “Yeah, that’s music to a girl’s ears. ‘Baby, your bloodline gets me all hot and bothered. Come make witchy babies with me. Forget the part where they’ll eat each other when they turn twenty-two.”

“Stop pretending to be a mundane for a few minutes, Olivia and imagine where the next generation of Parkers can go with Bennett lineage.” Jo’s head spun just contemplating the possibilities.

“Well, don’t start printing out the wedding cards yet. That dream of yours will probably never come to pass. What with Bonnie being so anti-Kai at the moment.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“Will he?”

“What do you mean?”

Liv smirked, her eyes shining with mischief. “She had a very interesting conversation with Alaric yesterday morning about Kai. Went on and on about how hooking up with him was a mistake. And she said all this in the kids’ nursery. With the monitor switched on. Guess who was in the kitchen to hear the whole thing?”

Jo stared at her sister, eyes boggling. “No effing way.”

“Yep. Kai was downstairs. He arrived shortly before Quentin Parrish. I was rounding up my presentation and I heard the whole thing.” Her smirk broadened. “Should have seen his face, Jo. He turned as white as sheet. He looked like if he was going to pass out. Or cry.” Liv sounded the opposite of sympathetic.

“Oh Kai,” Jo whispered softly, her heart aching for her twin.

Liv snickered, and stuffed her face some more.

“They’ll get past it,” Jo said confidently.

“Will they?” Liv sounded doubtful. “Still think he’s in Virginia?”

“ _You_ ’re the one who thinks he’s in Virginia.” Jo declared, frustrated. “Why are you so fixated on…?” And that was when it occurred to her. She peered hard at Liv. “You know I took psych during my residency.”

Liv groaned. “That sentence never ends well, Jo.”

Jo ignored her. “And all this harping on about Virginia and other people’s love lives seems to me like a classic case of transference. Is someone feeling a little homesick? A little Lockwood-sick?”

Liv shrugged nonchalantly, but her cheeks went slightly pink.

“You know you can always hop over to Mystic Falls and help them out with their heretic problem,” Jo suggested half-heartedly.

Jo always felt more than a little guilty about Liv’s social life – or rather, her lack of one. After moving to Portland, Liv had gone clubbing, gone on regular dates with someone from her office, and even got her passport stamped a couple of times. But all that had ended after the twins had born. As much as Jo loved and trusted Gab, she hadn’t shaken off the misgivings from early in the pregnancy when there had been talk in the coven of taking the twins from her. It was part of the reason why Jo wasn’t in a hurry to go back to work. And it was the reason why Liv was more or less grounded since their birth. The parties, the sort-of-boyfriend and the holidays hadn’t meshed with her new role as full-time Aunt.

“And leave you at the mercy of Gab?” Liv muttered, stirring her ice cream and turning it into slush, oblivious to how much worse her words were making her sister feel.

Jo was about to answer that when a phone rang. Both of them stared at Liv’s immediately, until they realized it was coming from Jo’s pocket. She picked it up and then groaned at the caller. “Dad.”

Liv made a ‘sucks to be you’ face and pulled the bowl into her lap. For someone who had been so worried about calories, Jo thought with some temper, her baby sister was really helping herself to most of the ice cream.

Jo took the call in the corridor, and was already mentally preparing herself for the usual questions and her usual answers: “I don’t know where Kai is, Dad. If he calls, I’ll let him know you want to speak to him.”

But Joshua Parker was calling about something different.

The conversation barely lasted ten minutes but by the end of it, Jo was filled with disquiet. She stood for a moment, thoughts running through her head. Was Kai behind this?

She turned to go back to Liv’s room and nearly screamed. Gab was standing right in front of her, so close that Jo could see the tiny blue veins in her face.

“Gab,” she said, still gasping. “You startled me.”

Gab’s blue eyes were glittering; and her face was undecipherable. “Did I, Josie?”

“Gab…?”

“Told Livvie to stop eating that crap.” Jo realized with some dismay that Gab had confiscated the ice cream. Instinctively, Jo reached for the tub, then drew her hands back quickly when the agate rings on the old woman’s gnarly fingers seemed to spark with outrage. “Girls are asleep. Come down and I’ll get us all a proper dinner.”

She trotted around Jo, and shuffled off.

Jo gaped after her. Then she went back to Liv’s room, half-expecting to find Liv pissed as hell. She hoped that Liv hadn’t given up their ice cream without a fight.

Instead, she found Liv crawling half-way under her bed.

“You won’t find it there,” Jo drawled.

Liv’s head shot up, banging her head against the bed frame, and swearing. She crawled out to stare at her sister with narrowed eyes. “You know where it is?”

“Er… we’re both talking about the mocha vanilla, right?”

“Oh, that.” Liv scowled. “You need to do something about her. She’s out of control.” She got to her feet, and strode to her closet.

“She’s mellowed,” Jo retorted. “You should have met her thirty years ago. Even Kai was scared of her.” She tilted her head, thinking. “Come to think of it, I think he still is.”

Liv didn’t chuckle, as Jo had expected. Although she probably hadn’t heard Jo since she was intent on flinging out all the contents of her closet to the floor.

“What are you looking for?” Jo asked, alarmed.

Liv popped out her head, her hair springing at gravity-defying angles. “My… Never mind. It’s nothing important.”

“Really?” Jo asked, highly skeptical. It was a lot of effort looking for something not important.

Liv heaved an impatient sigh. “Fine. I loaned Bonnie Bennett some of our grimoires and I think she may have borrowed a couple.”

“You  _think_?” Jo squeaked.

Liv rolled her eyes. “Pretend you didn’t hear that?”

“Olivia, if the council finds out…”

“They won’t find out because you won’t tell them.” She gave Jo an irritated look. “Come on. It’s  _Bonnie Bennett_. The superhero. Not some random witch from a rival coven. The Grimoires are fine.” But her eyes were worried and her brows were creasing. She turned back to her closet and started throwing her things back in.

“Olivia…”

“So what did Dad want anyway?” Liv said sharply, in an obvious attempt to change the topic.

Jo refused to be side-tracked. “Get those Grimoires back, before anyone realises they’re gone. I mean it.”

“Worried about Bonnie getting into trouble with the Council?” Liv asked lightly.

Too lightly.

“I’m worried about both of you,” Jo said softly.

Liv’s eyes flickered over her, gave her a small smile. “I’ll keep us out of trouble, don’t worry. Thank goodness, Kai’s AWOL, right? What did you tell Dad this time?”

“He wasn’t calling about Kai. Well, he asked about Kai, but this time there was something different.” Jo grimaced, remembering.

Liv paused in the middle of her own idea of tidying up, to give her sister a puzzled look. “What’s wrong, Jo?”

Jo sat down on the second bed heavily. “Not a single thing. It’s actually good news.” She looked up at her sister’s worried face and schooled hers into a smile. “Remember the witches that left after Kai became Praetor? And how some still stayed back even after Dad joined the Council and vouched for him?”

Liv nodded.

“Well, during the past week, a handful have reached out to the coven. Today the Council got calls from over a dozen.” She took a deep breath. “They’re coming back, Liv.”

Liv gaped. “That’s… that’s unbelievable. I was so sure… I thought…with Kai as Praetor… Some of those families swore never to return.”

“Well, they have now. It looks like our Praetor has been busy for a while.”

Liv’s eyes were almost falling out of her head. “You think Kai’s responsible for this?”

“I’m sure of it.” Jo said with firmness she didn’t feel. “Well, now we can’t keep assuming that the Praetor’s in Virginia.”

“If he’s not then someone else is. And whoever that person is, with influence over these witches, sending an influx of his allies back into the coven – that’s bad, Jo.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. The Council will be debriefing all of them in the next few days. They’ll tell us what brought about this sudden change of heart. If it’s someone up to no good or the Praetor himself.” She grimaced. “But it would be so much simpler if Kai was already here.”

Liv sighed heavily. “Where  _is_  he?”

 

* * *

one of Jonas Martin’s grimoires that confirmed the truth of Jo’s words.: Clue of the connection between the Martins and the Gemini.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta, keenan24. She writes amazing BK fics that you definitely should check out, too.
> 
> If you're not reading this for the first time, please don't spoil the surprises! 😉


End file.
